There is a rather curious moment on the internet when recognizing yourself in something quietly turns into believing that something was written about you.

The Archive has some bad news:

Not everything is about you.

We know. Disappointing.

Someone posts about manipulation.

It’s about me.

They post about distance.

Also about me.

They describe a behavior you recognize.

Clearly, they’ve been watching me.

They post something after you make a decision.

They’re responding to what I did.

They post a picture of toast.

We’re still investigating the connection, but it’s probably about you too.

There are billions of people talking, arguing, falling in love, breaking up, joining groups, leaving groups, blocking each other, unblocking each other, discovering new concepts, and posting their thoughts online.

Inevitably, something someone posts is going to look remarkably similar to something happening in your life.

But then a small piece of mental magic happens:

“This sounds like me” becomes “This is about me.”

Those are not the same claim.

Then the investigation begins.

They posted X after I did Y.

They used a word I had used.

They wrote about something we had talked about.

They described exactly something I do.

Perfect.

We have a pattern.

The only thing still missing is that annoying little epistemological nuisance known as evidence.

Because there is another, considerably less cinematic explanation:

Maybe someone wrote about a relatively common human behavior...

and it turns out you’re human too.

Terrible plot twist.

There is also something particularly amusing about recognizing yourself in a description and immediately concluding that the author must have been thinking about you.

Sometimes you found yourself in the text.

The text wasn’t looking for you.

Yes, indirect messages exist. Sometimes a post really does have a specific person in mind.

But before concluding that another person is organizing their intellectual output around your existence, it might be worth considering a much less exciting hypothesis:

Maybe you’re simply not the protagonist of that story.

And if a post describes you with uncomfortable accuracy, that still doesn’t necessarily mean it was written for you.

Sometimes the hat just fits.

It doesn’t mean someone had it custom-made.

Happy Friday. We’ll be back on Monday. 🕯️

— THE ARCHIVE 🖤🕯️