Jim Carrey says Truman Show has a darker ending in modern sense
“It used to be one man’s life being watched by the whole world. Now everybody has their own channel.”
“Truman escaped. But now everyone went back inside.“
This is an actual page on the White House web site. It reads like something written about a third world dictator. So embarrassing. I have not seen any branch of the federal government sink this low in my lifetime.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1989 Japanese energy drink commercial is the kind of gloriously bizarre celebrity advertising that could only have come from the late ’80s.
USA. A potluck. Everyone brings one dish. I have never been so out of my depth in my life.
I was invited to a gathering. "Just bring a dish to share," they said. Simple words. I did not sleep for three days.
Because I understood instantly what this was. A summit. Every guest, a lord of their own house, arriving bearing tribute. And tribute is judged. Tribute is ranked. To bring the wrong dish to the wrong table is to fall in standing before your peers, possibly forever.
So I prepared. I made my finest dish. I carried it to the door with two hands and a straight back, braced for the weighing of my worth.
The first lord arrived with a bowl of orange powder noodles. Macaroni and cheese. The crowd roared. He set it down at the center of the table. The CENTER. I noted this. The center is the seat of power.
The second lord brought a tower of small brown meat orbs in red sauce. "Meatballs," he announced, like a man laying down a sword. They were placed beside the macaroni. A strong showing. An alliance, perhaps.
I studied the table like a battlefield map. Potato salad: defensive, reliable, old money. A vegetable tray, untouched, clearly a hostage offering no one expected to win. And then a woman walked in, raised a flat box overhead, and the entire room turned and CHEERED.
Pizza. She had brought pizza. Store-bought. Still in the box.
I was stunned. She had not even cooked it. And yet the people rejoiced as if a king had entered. I revised my entire understanding of the hierarchy on the spot. Effort means nothing here. Only the roar of the crowd decides rank.
I placed my dish down, humbly, near the napkins. A peasant's position. I accepted it.
And then a man tapped my shoulder, pointed at my dish, and said the words that changed everything.
"Whoa, did you make this? This is amazing. Everybody, you GOTTA try this guy's thing."
The room turned. The room came. The room ATE. My dish vanished in ninety seconds. The pizza woman herself took a second helping and looked at me with respect.
I had won the summit. By accident. With a dish I placed by the napkins.
I understand nothing about this country. I have never been happier. I am hosting the next one.
So tell me, America.
Is there a system to the potluck? A secret rank? A hidden law?
I have decided there is not.
You just bring the thing you love, and everyone eats it, and somehow everybody wins.
It is the most insane way to hold a war.
I will fight in every single one.
The thing that got him in this position wasn’t upper middle class leftists, it was the overwhelming majority of Maine Democrats who preferred him over their incumbent governor. That’s the fulcrum of power you need to focus on if you want to understand this.
"but I wouldn't want to marry someone from a sex party!"
The advice is applicable to literally any interest. Tabletop. Crocheting. Church! The fact hers was at a sex party is irrelevant to the formula she is describing, some of you are deeply incapable of abstract thought
The problem isn’t that people are stupid.
The problem is that many people don’t realize they are being psychologically manipulated by systems designed to maximize engagement.
Yeah, a "normal person from 1995" totally argued that 1/3 of the US population should be deported and foreign-born Americans shouldn't be able to hold public office
The incredibly wealthy love to do this weird "I don't actually have any liquid cash" thing as if that's how wealth works. Money is a thing normal people like you and me and worry about. Rich people have *assets* and debt. They live off loans leveraged against what they own.