The Truman Show Pandemic
How Mass Hysteria Excites Delusion to Momentous Proportions
Sinking in a seemingly infinite pool of headlines — Death, Illness, Collapse, Isolation! Words that have instantly become commonplace in everyday conversation. As we bolt our doors and shrowd our faces from our neighbors, we curl into our own tiny worlds, chained away left to our own thoughts and devices; a fairly new concept for the modern ages.
2020, the year of exceptionally cataclysmic world events in the modern world has spawned another out of sight and out of mind phenomenon — delusion. Privacy, mandated isolation, an invisible enemy and an increasingly unfamiliar outside world have become the boogeymen of the new era. Before the many crises of the first quarter, society had become gradually more focused on self-perception, image, and idolization than ever before. Selfies had become habitual, self-promotion encouraged to the extreme of normalized propaganda and Reality Television skyrocketing to the top of the list of desired career paths for millions. If there ever was a time more ripe for the explosion of mass delusion, I surely wasn’t alive to witness it.
Now, a little bit about our friend Truman, delusion, paranoia and the reality of surveillance. In summary, The Truman Show, Peter Weir’s 1998 film that tells a fictional account of Truman Burbank (played by Jim Carrey), whose entire life has been filmed and broadcast as a soap opera, completely unbeknownst to Truman himself. Every person surrounding Truman is a paid actor or extra, Truman’s neighbors, coworkers, love interests and family alike are ingenuine, staged and scripted performers, cast by a mastermind Director (Christof) and filmed inside a massive, to world-scale sound stage.
Truman exists in an ongoing state of what can only be described as Stepford-like behavior, the world surrounding him is all too perfect, manicured and polite. There is no conflict, no homelessness or hardship to speak of in his quaint microcosm known as Seahaven. Somewhat abruptly, Truman begins to question his surroundings as he is informed by his (paid actress) lover, that everything he knows to be true is a lie. As the show goes on, Truman starts noticing unusual events: a spotlight falling out of the sky, a radio frequency that precisely describes his movements, and rain that falls only on him. These actions signal Truman’s mind to question his reality and the likelihood that he is being surveilled becomes more prominent in the awareness of his mind.
Delusion
de·lu·sion
/dəˈlo͞oZHən/
noun
- an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder. “the delusion of being watched”
In the surge of technological availability, firm personal conviction and opinion have become somewhat unremarkable. In modern society, nearly any thought or opinion can be vouched for by any number of mundane media sources or proven studies. With an unlimited amount of resources for information, a number of willing online communities in which to communicate similar ideologies on phenomena, technology has brought the TSD (Truman Show Delusion) to market, with more happy consumers than vilified disbelievers.
Delusion in numbers runs the risk of being accepted as realized truth.
Formally, TSD is known as “…a novel delusion, primarily persecutory in form, in which the patient believes that he is being filmed and that the films are being broadcast for the entertainment of others. We describe a series of patients who presented with a delusional system according to which they were the subjects of something akin to a reality television show…”
In times of mass hysteria, delusions are fed, if not bred by a surge of mass information, misinformation, and overzealous communication. In observance of today’s world, society, as we are accustomed, has come to a screeching halt. Mandated by Government, Press and Social Shaming, we are told to stay within our little boxes in order to maintain humanity. With such surmounting circumstances on the world stage, isolation has become the new normal; our living rooms, bedrooms, live feed portals and “socially distanced” isolated strolls have transformed into 7.53 Billion tiny stages of the human psyche.
Isolation
Perceived social isolation, known more colloquially as loneliness, was characterized in early scientific investigations as “a chronic distress without redeeming features”
— from Perceived Social Isolation and Cognition, by: John T. Cacioppo and Louise C. Hawkley
Isolation breeds mental disparity, shifts in perception of time, space and information processing. Isolation heightens anxieties, aggression, depression, and illusions of grandeur, exacerbating the importance of the ego and the self. Essentially, hallucinations happen because of a lack of brain stimulation, coupling a lack of stimulation with a fear of impending doom and minimal chances to explore the outside world may lead the mind to weave a tale of self-aggrandizement; after all, the ego will fight to sustain life at the precipice of uncertainty.
History: Seemingly Distant from Reality
The ability to relate or empathize with events of the past is unique, brazen indoctrination into mass and social media culture tends to create a sphere of self-importance within the greater ecosystem of anonymity or lack of prominence. Without a stage of public importance, the ego turns inward to manifest it’s value, forcing self principle and conviction to the forefront of the psyche. The modern lifestyle tends to cinematize history, creating a surrealist impression of time and its impact on the present — in other words, we do not observe history as it is incomprehensible to our sense of life and time.
Historical events in relation to the present; for example, the pandemic hysteria generated by the “Novel Corona Virus” are all too familiar when compared to that of prior pandemics throughout time; however our distorted perception of time and the omnipresent need for facts, action, and familiarity to be relative to modern life, easily dismiss the teachings of the past.
Paranoia feeds Self-Importance
The Truman Complex is essentially the ego creating a foundation of importance, likely spawned from a lack of control. Control freak, controlling, dominant, domineering are all terms relative to holding great importance in the decisions made to serve the ego. Large scale events, political occurrences, and tragedies are usually widely published events in the Western world, events that draw public interest and fuel the consumption of omnichannel news. Elevated consumption or awareness of these events (real or tabloid conspiracy) heightens anxiety and excites racing thoughts with the power to generate a sea of infinite outcomes and possibilities that suit the ego.
In the film, Truman begins to exhibit a heightened sense of paranoia as he ties together certain synchronicities between his private thoughts and his physical reality. Nuanced radio broadcasts and plastered images around the city of Seahaven are carefully constructed to excite fear in the sense of the unknown, causing Truman to, therefore, play by the rules and carry on with his mundane lifestyle. While evermore curious about what lies beyond the waters of Seahaven, Truman’s fear cripples his ability to escape. Truman desires to test the limits of his human experience however he is controlled by a fear of the unknown and the omnipresent fear of death.
What-if, what-if, what-if, what-else? The desire for more, the desire to be seen, the desire for love, validation and acceptance looms over the ego; in isolation, none of these needs are met. An isolated ego is left to find it’s own sense of importance.
7.53 Billion Series
7.53 Billion vignettes are playing out by the moment, every person, every life, every experience is a memoir waiting to be written. But — for now, the world is on pause, empathy, humility and social value are brought into question as the world lies on pause, mitigating one of the largest societal issues of the last hundred years. Citizens around the world are willingly locking themselves away in fear of a virus with a death rate of 0.00028134050993377% of the world total population. While merely a fraction of a percent, fear and the respect for the sanctity of life has driven the global society to shift their memoirs into a new reality, Billions of little Truman’s tucked away in their safe havens.
“Nothing you see here, nothing you hear is fake — it’s all real, it’s just… controlled.” — Marlon, The Truman Show.
While cornered away in our own little universe, it’s nearly impossible for every nuance to seem insignificant — the stage is set for a show and the mind ripe for disillusionment. In isolation the paranoia builds, every thought becomes a revelation, every illusion seemingly real, any parallel drawn between a thought and a resonance form physical reality makes the semblance ever more real. Films, books and television specials draw parallels to reality, these media become seemingly more prophetic by the moment as events pan out.
But What If the Delusions weren’t All in Vain?
With so many versions of reality coexisting simultaneously, it’s somewhat impossible to decipher what’s real, valuable and correct without some sort of guidance and controls in place. While considering the scope of the world, it’s scale and the vastness of the human population, it is nearly impossible to grasp the complexity of the ongoing reality. A probability of 7.53 Billion : 1 are godawful odds when we assume the importance of self to such a vast majority, delusion may be our best chance for survival without succumbing to a tragic annihilation of the ego. With odds like that “every man for himself” seems a bit more circumstantial and desirable rather than competing with the world at large. What if we are all Truman, performing our renditions of reality to an alien population on our world stage; our audience awaiting the grand finale when each of us finds that tiny exit door on the horizon…. We could all be Truman, or maybe it’s just me.