i’ve always been fascinated by deception the way people construct alternative realities for themselves and others not malicious deception necessarily but the kind that fills a void or projects an image that just isn’t quite accurate i’ve seen it my whole life in these suburbs the manicured lawns hiding unpayable debts the new cars leased to keep up with the new neighbors the unspoken competition for who’s doing better who’s happier it’s an endemic condition this need to appear a certain way a form of social camouflage my own child not a teenager anymore of course but i remember the phase i saw it then a sort of performative opulence they called it clout chasing i think anyway they’d go to these high-end car dealerships the kind with italian names and leather so smooth it feels almost indecent to touch it you know the type and they’d pose strategically with these absurdly expensive vehicles sometimes in the driver's seat sometimes leaning against a wheel sometimes just in the background all meticulously framed for social media it wasn’t about owning the car it was about the perception of owning it the filters the angles the clever cropping to imply a lifestyle that simply didn’t exist for us it was a working-class home through and through but online they were practically royalty a fleeting moment of borrowed splendor i watched them do it sometimes when i drove them but i never said anything it was a curious thing to observe the sheer dedication to the fabrication the hours spent editing the careful selection of captions it wasn’t about being happy it was about appearing to be happy about generating envy a strange kind of social currency and the peers they were trying to impress they mostly bought it some of them knew it was a put-on but even then it was part of the game the shared pretense the silent agreement to participate in this elaborate charade and i understood it in a way this desire to escape the mundane to be someone else for a little while to feel important if only in the digital ether it’s a powerful urge that to transcend your given circumstances to project a future that hasn’t arrived or never will it’s a silent scream against the ordinary against the predictable trajectory of a life perhaps it’s a form of aspiration or perhaps it’s just a symptom of something much larger something we all participate in to varying degrees you know just running on empty but looking perfectly fine from the outside.