August 2024

Once upon a time, status was built on what you did.

Now, it’s built on who’s watching.

Attention is the currency. Not money, not skill, not even expertise. Just… attention.

If you have it, you can sell anything—a product, an idea, yourself.

If you don’t, you’re invisible.

How We Got Here

Social media didn’t just connect people. It turned everything into a performance.

• Conversations became content.
• Friendships became follower counts.
• Opinions became engagement bait.

And the algorithm? It doesn’t care about truth. It cares about time spent on screen.

More outrage. More drama. More extremes. Because mild doesn’t trend.

The Business of Attention

Social platforms don’t sell ads. They sell your time.

• More engagement → More scrolling.
• More scrolling → More ads served.
• More ads served → More profit.

Every click, every share, every second you stay on a post—it’s money in their bank.
And creators? They’re just trying to keep up.

• Say something thoughtful? No traction.
• Say something divisive? Viral.

The market rewards those who play the game.

The Trap

Chasing attention feels like progress. Until it doesn’t.

• You post. You go viral. You win.
• You post again. Fewer likes. Anxiety.
• You post louder. More extreme. More controversial.
• You burn out. Or worse—you fade out.

It’s a game you can’t stop playing. But you also can’t win.

What Happens Next?

We built a world where attention equals power.
But power without depth is empty.

The question is—when the dopamine runs out, what’s left?

In India, the milk you drink might not be milk.

It could be detergent. Or shampoo. Or urea. Or a little bit of all three.

The paneer in your sabzi? It might be made from refined oil and synthetic chemicals. The spices in your kitchen? Laced with artificial colors and lead salts. The tea leaves? Burnt leather shavings. The ice cream on a hot day? Made with industrial starch. The sweets at festivals? Adulterated with washing powder.

This isn’t an exaggeration. It’s the market.

And it doesn’t stop at food.

Fake medicines are sold freely—expired pills repackaged, life-saving drugs replaced with chalk powder. In any sane country, this would be a crime worthy of capital punishment. Here, it’s just another day in business.

And then, the army was sold fake coffins.

Think about that. A country where even death isn’t spared. Where the most sacred, the most sensitive, the most irreplaceable is up for fraud. What chance does the rest have?

Hygiene? Not even a discussion. Rotten meat, rebranded and sold fresh. Open drains, next to street food stalls. Water mixed with sewage, running through the city’s veins. A fly in your food is not a sign of negligence, it’s a sign of affordability—after all, the cleaner places charge more.

And if someone does check? A bribe here, a favor there. The problem disappears.

Road safety? We build highways without barriers, intersections without signals, roads that flood at the first sign of rain. The seatbelt is optional, the helmet is for show, the traffic lights are mere suggestions.

Industrial safety? Gas leaks. Factory fires. Workers suffocated, crushed, burned. And when a building collapses, the rescue effort is a race against corruption as much as it is against time.

Labour laws? The richest in the country tell you to work 90-hour weeks. The poorest are forced to work without rights, without rest, without dignity.

The milk is not milk.

The medicine is not medicine.

The food is not food.

The rules exist—but only as long as no one pays to make them disappear.