Have you ever read George Orwell’s 1984?

Not you glossed over the Spark Notes or heard about it from someone who claims they read it. Not you watched a 30-minute YouTube video that broke down the entire story and the meaning behind it, and now you claim to understand everything the book is about.

I mean, you actually bought the book, or the e-book, or the audiobook, and you sat down to flip through pages one by one. Taking the time to go over every word with your eyes and analyze it with your brain, without anyone else telling you what it is or what you should learn from it.

For the audiobook, this also means you chose to listen to the full, 11-hour version of the book, not the abridged 3.5-hour version that “hits on all the key points” while ironically doing exactly what George Orwell was trying to warn us about.

If you haven’t read the book or listened to the full audiobook version, that’s okay. You’ll still be able to enjoy this email.

Quick book background so you’re not lost:

1984’s main character is Winston Smith. Winston lives in modern-day Britain, which is part of the superstate Oceania, which encompasses what we know today as the Americas and several parts of the “Western World.” There are three “superstates” that rule Earth. Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. These superstates are constantly at war. They have been at war for as long as anyone can remember or is allowed to remember. Who is at war with whom? That’s continually changing. Literally. On Monday, Oceania could be at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia, and on Tuesday, it could be the other way around, at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia.

How do they trick people to believe these things?

The protagonist, Winston Smith, works at the Ministry of Truth. His job is to rewrite historical documents to align with whatever current “truth” the ruling party wants people to “know.” He sits at a desk all day, where he receives little pieces of paper with instructions. He gets these instructions, finds the “historical” documents they are referring to, makes the changes he has been instructed to make, and then erases what it said before. Once again, literally. If his job is to say we’re at war with Eurasia, he will then send every document that previously said Eurasia was an ally to the incinerator. This way, there is no physical trace or evidence of “Eurasia ally” ever being a thing. Winston does this every single day he goes to work, and the “correct historical information” is constantly changing. Winston isn’t the only one doing this. There are thousands of others doing the same job he does. It’s the only way to guarantee all the records are “edited” properly.

I read 1984 for the first time in 2024 because I wanted to understand what all the online fuss was about. There are so many people complaining on the internet about the world “turning into 1984” when the government does things they don’t agree with that I had to see for myself.

Is it true?

Are things really that bad?

Should I be worried?

Short answer: There is absolutely a lot to worry about, but the most important things to worry about are probably ones you think you shouldn’t worry about 🫤

My biggest worry is that our daily lives, the information we consume, and the things we use to shape our view of the world are moving so fast we aren’t taking the time to properly appreciate them before committing them as facts.

I’m here today to tell you, if you’re worried we’ll reach a point where we don’t know whether what we’re consuming online is real or not—don’t—we’ve already reached that point. We passed that point several years ago. Probably more years than you’d like to admit without getting a little nervous.

What I’m anxious about is that people don’t care it’s happening.

Instead of taking the time to sit with something, think about it, analyze it, and question whether this piece of information should be allowed to fester in our brains or even be shared with our followers, we immediately act. We assume that because we saw something in a headline from Pop Crave that feels relevant and important, we take it as fact and share it with others (yes, my crusade against PopCrave and Shaderoom and all those other scummy news aggregation profiles will never end).

When people see something online, their first thought isn’t to question whether the source providing this information is reliable. Their initial reaction is to think, Does this somehow reinforce the beliefs I have about the world? From there, anything can happen.

People will share anything in their stories if they feel it validates their ideals and beliefs. At times, it can be harmless, but most times it is not. The scariest part is that it can be harmful in ways we never imagined because it takes too much critical thinking to get that far, so most people never get that far. It’s not that they can’t, it’s that they choose not to.

During the recent LA wildfires, I saw far too many accounts sharing the post below with captions like, This image of LA burning is a perfect metaphor for what is happening in our society today. or Nobody escapes climate change.

If you read the caption, you’ll notice that at the bottom it says, “Disclaimer: This is a 3D render.” I can’t tell you whether that was in the caption when it was originally shared or not, but judging by the fact that it says EDITED and the comments have been completely removed, I will safely assume it wasn’t.

Then you notice that the profile shared the date as DAY.MONTH.YEAR. A critical clue that will tell you this person was not born and raised in the US. After that, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes or Lucy Liu’s Watson to tap into the profile and realize the person is an Italian-Austrian 3D artist who shares nothing but images of luxury cars, real and fake (3D rendered, different from AI).

If you took the time to look through all of those things when you first came across the post, you probably wouldn’t have been inclined to share it as something factual. But most people didn’t do that. They saw a sick picture and were like, “That’s crazy! Gotta share this to my story!”

When presented with these facts in the face of an artificial image, (I hope) most people would assume it’s probably best to not share. But many others would justify it with, “But the idea is very important, and it will raise awareness,” or “It’s not exactly true, but it’s not fake either; there are real Lambos and mansions going up in flames.”

That’s a lot of mental gymnastics to share a picture that is clearly not real.

Unfortunately, in the age of I MUST SHARE THIS TO MY STORY nearly every single person with a smartphone and an internet connection has become the Simon Biles of Mental Gymnastics 🧠🤸

Listen, I get it. I really do.

It’s cool to see something cool and share it for other people to see. If anything, that’s the most natural human emotion that has endured on this beautiful planet. Millions of years ago, when one caveman found a really cool rock, he’d go find his other cavemen buddies and be like, yooooo check out this fucking dope ass rock I found. Today, that rock is a meme, an article, a tweet, or a 3D-rendered image of a Lambo burning next to a mansion that’s also on fire.

But when does something being “cool” start getting in the way of what’s real?

When does our impulse to share things we see without questioning them start to threaten our reality?

At the beginning of this email, I said we’d already reached that point. We’re well past that point, actually.

It’s been happening so slowly, so subtly, so casually, so demurely that we’re already so enveloped in the death squeeze of “reality” as we know it changing that we haven’t even noticed it’s happening. Maybe some people have noticed and tried to call it out, but you probably thought they were exaggerating.

How could things be getting worse if my stocks are doing so well?

A few years ago, I was watching TV and saw the first ad for Google’s “Magic Editor,” a photo editing tool powered by generative AI. In the ad, Google celebrates how a dad at the beach lifting his infant baby over his head can edit the image to make it seem like he was actually tossing the baby in the air. There’s no better way to explain how I felt at that moment than to say it gave me the heebie-jeebies. If you want a more in-depth explanation of the tool and its implications than what I can give you, take a look at these great articles from The Verge and El País, who addressed my very concerns shortly after the ad premiered in 2023.

I couldn’t actually find the commercial of the dad tossing the baby or any image of it on the internet, not sure if it’s been scrubbed or what. Instead, here’s an image with great photoshopping that might alter your perception of reality, but in a really cool way.

Long story short, we’re no longer just editing the light in a picture to make it brighter or softening our face to get rid of temporary pimples and blemishes. We’re straight up altering images in ways that aren’t real to present a thing that didn’t actually happen but passing it off as genuine. This goes beyond editing a picture in Photoshop to make yourself look skinnier (which is usually very evident, and you can’t hide it, so please don’t do it) or removing some things from a background so you can be in the picture with just your partner and not some stranger.

I wouldn’t necessarily do these things myself, but I understand why some people do.

This also different from the idea of “people only post their best moments, so nothing is real.” Yes, being sad in a relationship but only posting happy moments is an issue. But taking a selfie with your partner who doesn’t smile and then editing that picture to make it seem like they were smiling is an entirely different one.

It’s getting to a point where we can’t trust anything we see, not because what is being presented is only a selective depiction of what happened, but because we’re straight up sharing things that didn’t happen and passing them off as true. If you and your friends take five selfies and there isn’t a single one where everyone is smiling, that’s okay!

That’s the beauty of pictures.

They’re meant to capture something real, something in the moment. That’s why we love old film and developed pictures, because it captured one second whether everyone was ready or not. From there, you can wax nostalgic about the moments with nothing but your memories and love. If you want a picture where everyone is smiling, keep taking more pictures. Half the fun is looking them over and calling out everyone’s faces. Eventually, you get one after everyone’s cheeks hurt, and it’s a memory you made. Instead, we’re now doing the least while trying to express the most. All in the hopes of painting a picture we want people to see instead of just being real.

Moreover, the beauty of developed pictures is that nothing is perfect. I mean, look at these pictures of me (my family’s there too, but I’m the star).

You might be saying to yourself, “This isn’t that alarming. How did he make me ready so many words about something that seems so mundane?”

Because the “magic editing” of pictures is just the tip of the iceberg. There are tons of other ways these “changes” are happening in our daily lives that are altering every single thing we consume.

Just last year, I was watching Designated Survivor on Netflix (great show, check it out) and was disconcerted with subtle changes I noticed in the subtitles.

Sentences were missing keywords or other phrases that were said by the characters in their dialogue. This doesn’t mean the subtitles were unintelligible; to the contrary, it was actually easier to understand what they were talking about. That may seem like a benefit to some, but I see it as another thread in the decaying reality of the digital world that’s slowly oozing into every corner of our perceptions.

Here are a few examples of this from season 2, episode 10, Line of Fire:

DIALOGUE: There’s no more appropriate time for us to demonstrate ours.

SUBTITLES: There’s no better time for us to demonstrate ours.

DIALOGUE: We will not be able to stop the fire before it reaches you.

SUBTITLES: we won’t stop the fire on time

DIALOGUE: That guy is bad news, Mr. Shore. As in, you shouldn’t trust him.

SUBTITLES: That guy is bad news. He can’t be trusted.

DIALOGUE: …so that he gets to walk away with something after of all of this, and I get to reduce risk.

SUBTITLES: …so that he can walk away with something and I can reduce risk.

DIALOGUE: Hell, I’m dealing with 20 people who are holed up in a cabin willing to die for what they believe in.

SUBTITLES: I’m dealing with 20 people who are willing to die for their beliefs.

If you don’t think these changes are important, or if you don’t understand what’s so “1984” about them, go ahead and read the book to see why you should be concerned about things even as minute as these.

Technically, you can still hear what is said and notice the difference between the subtitles and the audio dialogue.

But what about the people who can’t hear?

What about the people who may not be paying attention to the dialogue and only reading subtitles?

These people are not getting the actual experience of the creatives who worked on these movies and shows were going for. They’re getting a watered-down version the tech bosses have decided works better. Or, worse, is easier to consume while turning your focus to other things that you're busy with. The objective is not to make the best piece of art possible—the new objective is to increase the value of the product as much as possible while decreasing the investment it took to make it.

In these small moments, we’re not only losing the art as it was originally intended. We’re also losing our capacity to think critically. To consume something thoroughly, in its entirety, the way it was meant to be appreciated.

We're losing our ability to communicate critically and thoroughly. The point of art isn’t to be made in a complex way and then diluted to such an extent that you can “get the idea” in a few short sentences and claim you’ve spent time with it.

With many pieces of art, you’re meant to feel discomfort.

You’re meant to not understand it at first.

You’re meant to leave the theater, or put down the book, or walk out of the art gallery and have to spend time trying to figure out what exactly it is you just saw or read.

The gifts these pieces of art give you are not just what you feel in the moment, but what you feel hours, days, months, and even years after. Instead of taking our time with beautiful works of art and letting the intentions of the artists pour over us and find their ways to every crevasse of our imagination so that maybe one day we can find inspiration from something we didn’t know burrowed deep inside of us or understand it because of a new life experience in a way we never understood it before, we just want to check off a box that says we consumed it.

Our current goal is no longer to feel something or to understand it, it’s to maximize what we consume while minimizing the effort it took to consume it. This extends beyond art and into the realm of general knowledge and expertise. “Do your own research” has become a stand-in for “I don’t like the answers the experts have given me, so I’m going to find my own.” People forget that being an expert doesn’t just mean “knowing” something.

Experts aren’t experts because they skimmed through the reading and can give you a three-sentence summary of what happened. Experts are experts because they painstakingly went through every piece of information, analyzed it, understood it, questioned it, and returned with this new knowledge to the original point. They can then go into extreme detail about the why's and how's of a particular subject.

Are experts fun to speak with? Not particularly when they go into excruciatingly boring details. Unfortunately, most of how we consume information today is the opposite of an expert. We want the Spark Notes, the summary. We think that is enough to understand. Then we go about making decisions and forming world views based on these summaries. Excluding crucial details that can take an idea or an argument in one way or another.

For those who still think everything I’m saying is not a big deal, I get it. You can still enjoy things and get something out of them when you get the Spark Notes version. But, the richness, the depth, the things that go beyond the surface? Those things you’ll never get to experience. The things that people toil in agony and hard work over the course of their lives to create. The moments and feelings they must endure to create this art that has been gifted to the world. You’ll never even get close to feeling what those things mean. But at least you’ll get to see things explode and cool action scenes. I mean, if that’s enough for you.

Keep reading the headlines and quick summaries, how important are the details anyway?

I would like to believe that people would be alarmed when things that happened in 1984 are happening in our world today. Something like, people who weren’t democratically elected gaining control of our historical government archives and using that power to SELECT ALL + DELETE things they don’t agree with.

Did university grand funding for soybeans have a noticeable impact on my day-to-day life? Not in a way that you can easily discern. Because, and this may be surprising to many people, in a country of 300 million people with complicated mechanisms in place that help these hundreds of millions of people live their lives, there are things that seem wasteful by themselves but are actually a key cog in a vast network of shit that happens, so society doesn’t crumble to pieces.

What does that mean? Soybean research may not affect you today, tomorrow, or even next year. But what if that soybean research helped farmers in Africa develop new crops to feed malnourished people? Without these crops, there could be famine, or more hunger in regions that are already strapped for food. This leads to people choosing different lives than they would’ve if they weren’t worried about food. People don’t become “terrorists” or even everyday criminals because their fries were cold at McDonald’s. They choose these lives when the present state of the world demonstrates it is not fit for them to survive. So they take drastic measures, which then impact millions of other lives.

That example is one of the more extreme ones. But if we bring it back home, soybeans are Missouri’s #1 crop in terms of acres and value, producing more than $2 billion annually for the state. Not only is that important revenue that can be taxed to provide value for the residents of Missouri through the maintenance of public services such as roads, parks, and energy infrastructure, it also means hundreds and thousands of jobs. But nobody thinks of that when their general reasoning is, “We’re paying how much for soybean research?!?! SOUNDS WOKE.”

And that’s how many decisions or stances are taken today. “If I don’t like how it sounds from hearing or reading one sentence, then it’s not necessary and should be stopped.”

Little by little, over many days and many seemingly innocuous decisions, the bricks that built an empire are removed. Without any thought of how they may be replaced.

There’s a large group of people who see those bricks as things they don’t like in society and would rather change. What they forget is that even though they don’t agree with the brick, it served a significant purpose. It was the foundation on which this empire was built. That’s not to say every brick, good or bad, should be appreciated, but they should be analyzed and understood. We need to know how those bricks impact us not just today, but how they impacted us 100 years ago, and how they will impact society 100 years from now.

It’s important to remember we didn’t just fall off the coconut tree. We are the accumulation of everything that came before us. It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but one domino falling causes many others to tumble. Eventually, when the final domino tumbles, we will be so worried trying to survive that we will not remember the first domino that started this chain of events. By then, it will be too late to do anything to stop what’s already happened.

I read something online last year that really stuck with me. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to find the exact thing I read again, but I think the idea is important, and it persists. It went something like: People who lived in the Roman Empire say it crumbled at a specific date, but historians actually point to the collapse happening 20–25 years earlier than what those people recall.

Sometimes, we’re too in the thick of things to notice the large-scale and even small-scale changes that are happening. The changes that are determining our lives today, and the lives of future generations.

Sometimes, we don’t care enough to think about it because all that shit is too overwhelming, and I’d rather have a good lol with my friends over the DMs instead of thinking about the hellfire of a world we’re leaving our children and grandchildren.

I hope you take a second to realize we’re not 5, 10, or even 15 years from the collapse of an empire.

It’s happening right now.

What are you going to do about it?