The Mask, the Mirror, and the Funnel

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the shape of culture, and how we make space for art in a world where the noise never stops.

There’s a piece by The Honest Broker that asks, “Are We Living in a Time of Cultural Stagnation?” The author argues that we’re stuck in a loop—a moment where bold new ideas get passed over in favor of polished reboots, copycat aesthetics, and safe bets. And the evidence is everywhere: the movies getting made, the songs going viral, the way entire industries feel scared to take a risk unless they know it’ll hit fast.

He’s not wrong. But I don’t think that means creativity is dead. It just means the delivery system is broken.

Enter the masks.

Bands like Ghost, Sleep Token, and now President are thriving in that system. They don’t just make music—they create myth. You don’t know their real names. You don’t follow their personal drama. You enter a world, a ritual, a carefully controlled emotional experience. And it works. In an era of oversharing, anonymity is the new mystery.

President, in particular, is fascinating. One song, one aesthetic, and it’s obvious: this was built to hit. It sounds good, yes—but it also sounds like someone already in the industry knew exactly what they were doing. It’s not a wild gamble. It’s a precise strike into a niche that’s already proven fertile.

That’s not a critique. It’s smart. Strategic. But it’s also the opposite of what I’m doing.

I write memoir. I write strange fiction. I don’t have a marketing team. I don’t have a costume. I have my name. I have my voice. I have the truth of my own goddamn life.

And the truth is, I kind of know I’m holding something special.

The Cancer Diet isn’t flashy. It’s not part of a trend. But it’s real. It’s a book that might actually save someone’s life—not through some cheap “inspiration” arc, but because it’s honest about what survival really looks like.

Unto a Golden Dawn is weirder. Bigger. Messier. It still needs refining. But I’ve seen it shimmer. I’ve felt what it’s capable of becoming. I believe it can matter. And I’m willing to put in the time to make it worthy of that.

Here’s the deeper truth: there’s nothing new about similar stories being popular and profitable. That’s how storytelling has always worked. Shakespeare was remixing old Chinese plots and folk tales. We literally categorize stories by conflict type—man vs man, man vs self, man vs nature—because the cores repeat. That’s not a flaw. That’s life.

What has changed is the funnel.

When I was a kid, there were four big TV stations. A few local ones. A few religious ones. That was it. If a show was on at 8pm, and you had a TV, odds were everyone you knew was watching it too.

Now? There are thousands of platforms, services, formats, voices, niches. And for artists, that means thousands of ways to express yourself. But also thousands of new gatekeepers. Thousands of places to get lost.

And worst of all? Everyone is carrying a personalized attention thief in their pocket.

Your phone doesn’t want you to read a 300-page memoir. It wants you to scroll. Your apps don’t want you to engage deeply. They want you to react quickly. Even when you’re alone, you’re in a crowd of content.

So here I am: a creator with no easy ask.

I’m not giving you a playlist. I’m asking you to sit with grief. With trauma. With recursion and metaphor and dissonance and love. The Cancer Diet is emotional work. Unto a Golden Dawn is mental work. I know that. And I also know most people don’t think they have the energy for that anymore.

But I still believe they want it. That underneath the saturation, people are starving for something real. Not a copy. Not a trend. Not nostalgia.

Because nostalgia? It’s seductive—but it’s a trap.

Were things better when there were only four channels on TV? Hell no. But there was a funnel. There was a common fire. A shared frame of reference. And that made discovery easier. Now, the funnel is infinite—and fragmented. Everyone’s in their own algorithmically sorted bubble.

So my job isn’t just to make the work. It’s to figure out how to deliver it. How to cut through the noise. How to be loud enough without becoming fake. How to build a presence that feels like truth.

Whether you wear the mask or offer the mirror, we’re all just trying to be seen. To be known. To connect.

Some of us will hit fast. Some of us will build slow.

But if the work is honest, and the voice is real, and the signal strong enough?

It will reach someone.

And when it does, it won’t just be a hit.

It will be home.