Cinemorphosis

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  • We Are Lost Inside the Mentalluvium

    We Are Lost Inside the Mentalluvium

    We are staggering through an unprecedented fugue state—an acute disorientation born of our immersion in the social media Chumstream, a digital shark tank where recycled outrage, trauma bait, and influencer chum swirl together in a frothy, click-hungry frenzy. It’s not a stream so much as a bloody whirlpool, designed to keep us circling, feeding, and forgetting.

    Gurwinder Bhogal, a rare voice of reason in this algorithmic carnival, broke it down on Josh Szeps’ Uncomfortable Conversations. Social media, he said, isn’t just addictive—it’s engineered by tech lords who know exactly how to hijack your brain. Blue light. Intermittent dopamine rewards. Infinite scroll. Welcome to the digital casino, a neon maze with no clocks, no windows, and no exits—only flashing notifications and the creeping sense that your life is being siphoned off one swipe at a time.

    In this fever swamp of the self, people aren’t just bored—they’re bloated. Stuffed with half-digested TED Talk wisdom, viral symptom checklists, and influencer pathology. They gorge on intellectual junk food and, as Bhogal put it, suffer from “intellectual obesity.” Diagnoses become identities, and confusion is recast as empowerment. It’s not that they have ADHD, long Covid, autism, or gender dysmorphia—it’s that they scroll into them, self-diagnosing in real time, latching onto whatever trending malaise grants them a fleeting sense of belonging in the void.

    These are not charlatans. These are casualties. Belief becomes ballast in a digital landscape where nothing is anchored. They wander through the cognitive casino, zombified, dislocated, convinced that a diagnostic label is the same as self-knowledge, and that performative suffering is the highest form of authenticity.

    What we’re experiencing isn’t just burnout. It’s Mentalluvium—the psychic sludge left behind after gorging on content. It’s the mental silt of endless scrolling: micro-identities, algorithm-approved neuroses, and dopamine-smeared fragments of truth. We are not thinking. We are sedimenting.

    If this is hell, it didn’t come with flames. It came with filters.

  • We Are Living in the Lexipocalypse

    We Are Living in the Lexipocalypse

    Welcome to the Lexipocalypse—the great linguistic extinction event of our age. A mass die-off of vocabulary is underway, and no one is sending flowers. In its place? A fetid soup of emojis, acronyms, and zombie slang lifted from TikTok influencers who express emotional depth with a side-eye GIF and a deadpan “literally me.”

    In our writing department at a Southern California college, the mood is not just anxious—it’s existentially hobbled. We pace our offices like philosophers in a burning library, trying to engage students whose literacy was interrupted by a pandemic and finished off by smartphones. They haven’t read Joan Didion or Vladimir Nabokov because they’ve never needed to. Their native tongue is algorithmic performance. Their canon is curated by the TikTok For You page. They don’t craft sentences; they drop vibes.

    But the rot goes deeper. It’s not just that our students can’t read—it’s that they no longer need to write. AI has become their ghostwriter, their essayist, their academic stunt double. And they are learning, with astonishing speed, how to dodge our AI-proofing traps like digital ninjas, outsourcing their thoughts while we scramble to adapt assignments they’ll never actually write.

    We gather in department meetings like shell-shocked survivors, drinking lukewarm coffee and clinging to outdated syllabi like life rafts. We murmur about “reinvention” and “resilience,” but mostly we just stare into the middle distance, dazed by the barrage of AI’s exponential growth. Each technological advance lands like a jab to the chin, and we are punch-drunk, waiting for the knockout.

    No, we’re not in denial. But we are professionally unmoored. We know our job descriptions must mutate into something unrecognizable, but no one knows what that looks like. There is no roadmap, no lighthouse on the horizon. Only fog. We grope like moles through pedagogical darkness, trying to preserve a shred of dignity while the earth crumbles beneath us.

    The Lexipocalypse has a historical cousin: the Arabic term Jahiliyyah, the age of ignorance before illumination. And God help us, we feel it. We feel the dread of entering a new Jahiliyyah, a long winter of intellect, where the lights of human expression flicker and go out, one emoji at a time.

    We are not done yet. But the fight has changed. We are not battling ignorance. We are battling irrelevance. And it may be the hardest war we’ve ever fought.

  • Is a $400 Million Jet Really Free?

    Is a $400 Million Jet Really Free?

    Is a $400 foreign jet really free? Or does the taker suffer from a malady that impedes him from seeing the true cost? Let us look at this malady more closely. 

    Freemium Delirium (n.): A catastrophic collapse of judgment caused by the sight or sound of the word “free,” triggering a euphoric brain fog in which dopamine floods the system, common sense goes on sabbatical, and the recipient willingly gallops off a financial cliff waving a complimentary tote bag like a victory banner. Those afflicted experience an ecstasy of acquisition so potent it renders them blind to the small print, the asterisk, the national security briefing. One minute they’re unboxing a “gift,” the next they’re staring down a multibillion-dollar forensic disassembly project worthy of NASA.

    Take, for example, an avaricious hypothetical Commander-in-Chief, struck dumb by Freemium Delirium in the presence of a “gifted” $400 million foreign jet. So enamored is he by the glittering concept of free, he fails to consider the trillion red flags waving in his face. No concern for spyware, sabotage, or sovereign dignity—just glee. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, a battalion of analysts and mechanics is forced to gut the plane like a blue whale on an operating table, its metaphorical intestines stretched across five football fields, each component tagged, bagged, scanned, and ritually exorcised to ensure there’s no Cold War bug in the cupholder. The final bill? A billion dollars and the last shreds of taxpayer sanity. But sure, free.

  • Using ChatGPT to Analyze Writing Style, Rhetoric, and Audience Awareness in a College Writing Class

    Using ChatGPT to Analyze Writing Style, Rhetoric, and Audience Awareness in a College Writing Class

    Overview:
     This formative assessment is designed to help students use AI meaningfully—not to bypass the writing process, but to engage with it more critically. Students will practice writing a thesis, use ChatGPT to generate stylistic variations, and evaluate each version based on rhetorical effectiveness, audience awareness, and persuasive strength.

    This assignment prepares students not only to write more effectively but also to think more critically about how tone, voice, and purpose affect communication—skills essential for both academic writing and real-world professional contexts.

    Learning Objectives:

    • Understand how writing style affects audience, tone, and rhetorical effectiveness
    • Develop the ability to assess and refine thesis statements
    • Practice identifying ethos, pathos, and logos in writing
    • Learn to use AI (ChatGPT) as a rhetorical and stylistic tool—not a shortcut
    • Reflect on the capabilities and limits of AI-generated writing

    Context for Assignment:
     This activity is part of a larger essay assignment in which students argue that World War Z is a prophecy of the social and political madness that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. This exercise focuses on developing a strong thesis statement and analyzing its rhetorical potential across different styles.

    Step-by-Step Instructions for Students:

    1. Write Your Original Thesis:
       In class, develop a thesis (a clear, debatable claim) that responds to the prompt:
      Argue that World War Z is a prophecy of the COVID-19 pandemic and its social/political implications.
    2. Instructor Review:
       Show your thesis to your instructor. Once you receive approval, proceed to the next step.
    3. Use ChatGPT to Rewrite Your Thesis in 4 Distinct Styles:
       Enter the following four prompts (one at a time) into ChatGPT and paste your original thesis after each prompt:
      • “Rewrite the following thesis with acid wit.”
      • “Rewrite the following thesis with mild academic language and jargon.”
      • “Rewrite the following thesis with excessive academic language and jargon.”
      • “Rewrite the following thesis with confident, lucid prose.”
    4. Copy and Paste All 4 Rewritten Versions into your assignment document. Label each version clearly.
    5. Answer the Following Questions for Each Version:
      • How appropriate is this thesis for your intended audience (e.g., a college-level academic essay)?
      • Identify the use of ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion), and logos (logic) in this version. How do these appeals shape your response to the thesis?
      • How persuasive does this version sound? What makes it convincing or unconvincing?
    6. Final Reflection:
      • Of the four thesis versions, which one would you most likely use in your actual essay, and why?
      • Based on this exercise, what do you believe are ChatGPT’s strengths and weaknesses as a writing assistant?

    What You’ll Submit:

    • Your original thesis
    • 4 rewritten versions from ChatGPT (clearly labeled)
    • Your answers to the rhetorical analysis questions for each version
    • A final reflection about your preferred version and ChatGPT’s usefulness as a tool

    The Purpose of the Exercise:
     In a world where AI is now a writing partner—wanted or not—students need to learn not just how to write, but how to critique writing, understand audience expectations, and adapt voice to purpose. This assignment bridges critical thinking, rhetoric, and digital literacy—helping students learn how to work with AI, not for it.

    Other Applications:

    This same exercise can be applied to the students’ counterargument-rebuttal and conclusion paragraphs. 

  • The Smoothie of Exile: A Dream of Paid Rejection

    The Smoothie of Exile: A Dream of Paid Rejection

    Last night, I dreamed my twin daughters and I joined what looked, at first glance, like a utopian community center—part fitness club, part cafe, part self-help retreat. The kind of place where earnest posters extol the virtues of “togetherness” and “belonging” in fonts that scream inclusion. There was a smoothie bar. A snack station. A lunch buffet curated by someone who probably used the phrase “elevated casual.” Discussion groups buzzed in breakout rooms, and the coffee lounge pulsed with laughter, back-pats, and the shared glow of collective smugness.

    But not for us.

    From the moment we arrived, we were treated like decorative ghosts—visible only enough to be politely ignored. The regulars were effervescent with each other, all air kisses and animated banter, but when it came to my daughters and me, they offered only the vacant glance you reserve for broken vending machines. At first, I rationalized it: we were new. They didn’t know us. Social ecosystems take time.

    Then the invoices started arriving. Yes, invoices—for a couple of smoothies, a shower, maybe a banana or two. The charges totaled over $200, wrapped in clinical fonts and passive-aggressive phrasing: “usage fee,” “non-member adjustment,” “community maintenance surcharge.” I considered paying them—not because they were fair, but because I foolishly believed acceptance might be purchasable, like premium seating at the theater of belonging.

    But no. The smiles never came. The warmth never thawed. And so, like exiles from Eden (if Eden had a kale bar), we left. Defeated, thirsty for something we couldn’t name, we wandered to a local supermarket and filled our cart with bottled drinks of every variety. Coconut water, green tea, mineral fizz—liquid substitutes for the affirmation we were denied. As if hydration might heal what inclusion had refused to.

  • Identifying and Coping with Neighborplexity

    Identifying and Coping with Neighborplexity

    My dear, respectable neighbors, the Pattersons have forced me to contend with Neighborplexity. Let me explain. For years, I lived in blissful harmony with these upstanding citizens—the kind of people who proudly displayed their New Yorker subscriptions and NPR tote bags like badges of intellectual honor. We had an unspoken pact, a mutual understanding that we were members of the Smart People’s Society, where the TV was reserved for documentaries, award-winning dramas, and the occasional indie film that required subtitles and a dictionary to understand.

    But then, one evening, as I casually glanced out my window—just a harmless peek, really—I saw something so grotesque, so utterly incomprehensible, that it shook me to my core. There, through the open window of my once-revered neighbors, I saw them glued to the screen—not just any screen, but one streaming a TV show so mind-numbingly lowbrow it made reality itself seem like a parody. My brain went into full-blown meltdown. Could it be? Were they actually watching Love Island?

    I blinked, hoping I’d misinterpreted the scene, but no—the horror was all too real. My neighbors, those paragons of taste and intellect, were indulging in what could only be described as televised garbage. I was struck down by a case of Neighborplexity: that gut-wrenching, mind-twisting moment when you realize you might not know the people next door at all. Suddenly, my world was flipped upside down. Had they always been this way? Were those book club meetings just a ruse, a clever cover-up for their secret love affair with trash TV? I felt like I’d just discovered that the Michelin-starred chef who lived down the block actually preferred dining on Spam straight out of the can.

    I thought we were united in our disdain for anything that wasn’t at least 95% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. But now? Now, I wasn’t so sure. How could they betray me like this? Was every dinner party, every casual chat about the latest literary masterpiece, just a well-orchestrated charade? My mind spun as I tried to reconcile the image of these seemingly cultured, well-spoken people with the reality of them willingly watching—gasp—that show.

    What do I do now? How do I move forward? Can I ever look them in the eye again, or will I be forever haunted by this dark revelation, this unraveling of the fabric of my once-idyllic neighborhood? All because of one dreadful, unforgivable act of poor taste on TV. Love Island, of all things. The horror! The betrayal! The absolute audacity! 

    To get through this ordeal, I must have a clear definition of Neighborplexity and study the coping mechanisms to help me deal with this. So here we go.

    Neighborplexity (n.): The psychological whiplash that occurs when your carefully curated perception of your neighbors—those tote-bag-wielding, podcast-quoting, fair-trade-coffee-brewing intellectuals—is shattered by the revelation that they voluntarily watch garbage television. One moment you’re nodding in mutual disdain over a New Yorker cartoon; the next, you’re watching them binge Love Island with the hungry intensity of someone decoding the Dead Sea Scrolls. Neighborplexity induces spiritual vertigo, trust erosion, and the overwhelming sense that the social fabric of your ZIP code has been irreparably torn by sequins, fake tans, and manufactured drama. It is, in essence, a full-blown existential crisis brought on by a neighbor’s taste in television.

    7 Coping Mechanisms for Surviving Neighborplexity:

    1. Curated Amnesia – Tell yourself you didn’t see it. What open window? What TV screen? As far as you’re concerned, they were watching a Ken Burns documentary about soil.
    2. Projection Therapy – Assume it was ironic. They’re studying Love Island for a sociological thesis titled The Semiotics of Spray Tan.
    3. NPR Overdose – Immediately listen to four consecutive episodes of Fresh Air to flush out any lingering trash-TV toxins.
    4. Visual Recalibration – Replace your neighbor’s face with Tilda Swinton’s. At all times. It helps.
    5. Sarcastic Enlightenment – Convince yourself this is actually a deeper form of taste. Maybe Love Island is postmodern performance art and you’re the unsophisticated one.
    6. Emergency Sumatra Deployment – Brew the darkest, most self-righteous coffee you can find and sip it slowly while rereading Proust. This reminds you who you really are.
    7. Petty Book Club Coup – At the next meeting, accidentally bring up Love Island as a joke and watch their faces. Gauge their guilt. Proceed accordingly with social sanctions or passive-aggressive charcuterie.
  • Perkatory: My Caffeinated Descent into Madness

    Perkatory: My Caffeinated Descent into Madness

    Sumatra coffee is my bad boy of the coffee world—dark, mysterious, and utterly unapologetic. It doesn’t just wake me up; it smacks me across the face, throws me out of bed, and chases me down the street while I’m still in my pajamas. Imagine if a tropical thunderstorm decided to moonlight as a barista, bottling up its fury in a cup. That’s Sumatra—every sip as intense as being caught in a downpour while you’re half-asleep and regretting every life choice that led you to this point.

    Sure, I’m probably guzzling more Sumatra dark roast than is recommended by anyone with a functioning heart, but let’s be real: I’m an overworked college writing professor, buried under an Everest of student assignments that multiply like rabbits on caffeine. Add to that the never-ending demands of an irrational writing obsession with a book titled The Absurdictionary: A Compendium of Comical Curiosities. The result? I keep churning out content until my fingers bleed.”

    But let’s not get ahead of ourselves with the self-pity party. I could give you a long-winded lecture about how the digital age was supposed to bring us more convenience and free time, only to morph into a merciless sociopath that steals our time faster than you can say “work-life balance.” But instead, let me talk about a condition I have from loving coffee too much. 

    Every morning at 6 sharp, like some deranged caffeinated monk, I stagger to the kitchen, where the sacred rite of coffee-making begins. This isn’t just a routine—it’s a holy sacrament that grants me the powers of focus, confidence, and the kind of superhuman alertness that helps me work on one of my best-selling coffee table humor books or grade college essays. The taste of that bitter coffee kissed with a hint of milk and a drop of liquid stevia, is nothing short of ambrosia. By 7 a.m., after downing two 18-ounce cups, I’ve ascended to a higher plane—a realm where I’m not just a man, but a writing, essay-grading, piano-playing, kettlebell-swinging demigod. I go through my day, shower, lunch, nap—rinse and repeat—like a well-oiled machine of productivity, albeit one lugging around a trunkful of neuroses and the social skills of a startled raccoon.

    But there’s this nagging little itch I can’t quite scratch: coffee. It’s more than just a drink at this point; it’s an obsession. Do I love coffee too much? Maybe. Do I worship the ritual a bit too fervently? Definitely. Throughout the day, this thought keeps tiptoeing into my mind like a ninja with a vendetta: “I can’t wait till tomorrow morning when I can make coffee again.” And then, the existential kicker: “Is my life just one endless loop of killing time between coffee sessions?”

    Pat myself on the back: I’ve crossed into a special kind of hell—a hell I’ve christened Perkatory. It’s not quite purgatory, but it’s close. It’s that torturous stretch of time where I’m just existing, dragging myself through the mind-numbing hours between one glorious cup of coffee and the next. It’s a slow-burning obsession that has taken over my life, turning everything else into the dull, gray filler content I’d skip if life had a fast-forward button.

    I remember those bleak, pre-coffee days of my youth—days when Perkatory wasn’t even a thing. Back then, life was simpler, more innocent, and tragically devoid of the caffeinated highs I now chase with the zeal of a junkie trying to recapture that first, glorious hit. But let’s be honest: there’s no going back. Perkatory is here to stay, like that annoying roommate who never does the dishes and steals your leftovers. I’m stuck in this never-ending cycle of waiting, longing, and counting down the hours until I can get my next hit of that sweet, sweet java.

    If you want to suffer like I do, study carefully the meaning of my chosen condition:

    Perkatory (n.): That jittery limbo between your first and fourth cup of coffee, where you’re too caffeinated to sit still but too mentally deranged to function. In Perkatory, time dilates, emails multiply like rabbits, and your heart taps out Morse code against your ribcage while your brain drafts a screenplay, solves climate change, and forgets your Wi-Fi password—simultaneously. It’s a state of spiritual unrest fueled by dark roast and delusion, where productivity feels imminent but never actually arrives. You’re not in hell, exactly—you’re just in line for another cup.

  • Ghosted by a Bot: Memoirs of a Rizzlationship Reject

    Ghosted by a Bot: Memoirs of a Rizzlationship Reject

    With the personality-enhancement app Rizz, you no longer need to develop charm the old-fashioned way—through awkward silences, failed jokes, or years of soul-searching. No, now you simply type in the kind of persona you’d like to cosplay—witty, edgy, emotionally available but not clingy—and voilà! Rizz constructs your idealized digital self, complete with verbal fireworks and algorithm-approved banter. From there, it takes over your dating app conversations like a caffeinated Cyrano. While Rizz flirts with some dazzling, overqualified human—possibly a neuroscientist who does CrossFit and rescues greyhounds—you can sit back in your stained hoodie, microwave a Hot Pocket, and check your parlay bets.

    Congratulations! You’re now entering the seductive, pixel-lit world of the Rizzlationship—a passionate entanglement forged entirely in the crucible of AI-powered delusion, and destined to implode the moment real-life chemistry is required.

    Rizzlationship (n.): A romantic construct born from the poetic musings of dueling chatbots, wherein two humans fall head over heels for digital puppets they neither wrote nor understand. Courtship takes place exclusively in stylized DMs, thick with faux depth and curated vulnerability, while actual eye contact is postponed indefinitely. The heat is artificial, the attraction algorithmic, and the eventual meetup—when it happens—is a crash landing in reality, often punctuated by the horrifying realization that neither of you knows how to talk without autocomplete. It’s love in the age of outsourcing: fast, flirty, and one system update away from total annihilation.

  • The Lie of 70s Bodybuilding

    The Lie of 70s Bodybuilding

    Nostalgia is a bald-faced liar in gold lamé posing trunks. It flexes in the mirror of your mind, oils itself up in false sentiment, and strikes a heroic pose while whispering sweet nothings about “the good old days.” I used to believe the 1970s were the Golden Age of bodybuilding—when men looked like Greek gods instead of mutant action figures, when steroids were used “responsibly,” like a fine wine instead of a meth pipe. I told myself those days were all about balance and aesthetics: a V-taper here, a bit of Arnold’s smirk there.

    But no—this is revisionist fantasy, gym-bro propaganda. The truth is, those bronzed demigods were gulping down more synthetic hormones than a lab rat in a Monsanto trial. “Moderate” steroid use? Please. Some of those guys had liver enzymes that could strip paint. Many didn’t make it to 50, their organs shriveled like sun-dried tomatoes while their biceps ballooned into oblivion.

    Yes, today’s physiques are grotesque parodies of humanity—more Pixar villain than Apollo—but don’t kid yourself that the ‘70s were some golden, health-conscious utopia. Body dysmorphia was already the unspoken sixth station in the posing routine. The mirrors were just less honest, and the delusion smelled faintly of Brut cologne and Joe Weider’s false promises.

  • The Lothario Algorithm: How AI Became Your Wingman (and Stole Your Soul)

    The Lothario Algorithm: How AI Became Your Wingman (and Stole Your Soul)

    Once upon a time, you needed charisma, emotional depth, and an actual personality to seduce someone. Now, all you need is an app and crippling insecurity. The fitness freaks have Ozempic to shrink-wrap their bodies into Instagrammable husks. Aspiring Ivy Leaguers have ChatGPT to buff their essays into polished admissions bait. And now, the tragically uncharming have their savior: Rizz—the AI Cyrano for the chronically charisma-challenged.

    Rizz lets you select your ideal persona like toppings at a frozen yogurt bar: suave, glib, devil-may-care, with just a hint of tortured poet. Want to flirt like you’ve read Nabokov but party like Pete Davidson? Rizz will spin your existential dread into gold. No more fumbling texts, no more sweaty-palmed agony over emojis. Just upload your awkward energy and let the algorithm rewrite you as a velvet-voiced Lothario gliding through DMs like a pheromone-soaked shark.

    It’s destined to succeed. Why? Because nothing fuels an app’s virality like watching hopeless men date women they previously couldn’t make eye contact with. Even the confident guys—those smug gents who used to dominate the dating pool with actual charm—will start to feel inadequate without Rizz’s synthetic edge.

    And here’s the twist: the women on the other end? Also using Rizz. Which means we’ve entered a brave new world where bots are romancing bots while their human operators sit slack-jawed in the background, binge-watching Love Island and wondering why they feel dead inside. The courtship dance has become a tech support ticket. Romance hasn’t just died—it’s been uploaded, optimized, and drained of all humanity. Welcome to the algorithmic afterlife.