What the Hell is going on?
That's the question we're sitting with through one of our podcast strands.
And not from a place of giving up but from a place of trying to stay human in a world overloaded with images of suffering and injustice.
That's why we've introduced What the Hell?, a new segment on the Shadowgraph Podcast, where we look at the absurdity of what's unfolding and share strategies for coping and not becoming overwhelmed.
The Feed is Not the (whole) World
We are all connected by a small block of glass and metal in our pockets.
This over-connectivity is not beautiful.
Instead, it's a feed: a never-ending collision of the trivial, the violent, the hyper-real.
We all know that terrible feeling of comparing ourselves to others.
Aesthetic fragments. Manufactured perfection. And then, in an instant, a brutal image of unimaginable suffering in Gaza.
The mind can't digest this; it's mentally unnatural to see such a sequence of images.
And yet, this is our world.
A hollow ritual of consumption, for those of us living in the West, surrounded by comfort and privilege.
Storytelling as Resistance
Shadowgraph was born out of this dystopia.
A place to create, not only to feel overwhelmed.
Not to turn away, but to face it with the tools we have:
Creativity, and a media system that is not dumbed down by the consumer habits of algorithms.
As this project grows, the world feels even more disjointed.
But telling stories — and helping others tell theirs — remains an act of resistance.
It's a way to stay engaged without surrendering to helplessness.
A way to remain connected to others in a time of profound disconnection.
We don't offer grand solutions.
But there are practices, some of which we mention in our What the Hell? Podcast:
Move towards the analogue.
Move back to the natural.
Not because we are hipsters but because our nervous system wasn't built for this level of synthetic noise that social media feeds corrupt us with.
Go deeper.
Read history and enjoy it through beautiful, creative writing.
Fragments of history on social media do not offer the same context and understanding.
Understand the structural forces behind what you're seeing.
Then, speak to others in real places, over real conversations.
We all need each other so much at the moment.
Take care of your attention.
— Shadowgraph