"watching and watching" (S26)

watching and watching. They spent the next few hours immersed in their phone as the algorithm took them further and further into the black hole of the channel's videos. The lead speaker had a way of speaking that wholly captured the viewer’s attention, not allowing any distraction to permeate the bubble of the video.

‘Ping!’ Jesse’s attention was ripped from the video they had been watching, and they glanced at the time and gasped, horrified at how much time they had spent watching videos on a channel they would probably never go back to.

Now that Jesse’s focus had been interrupted, their mind started to contemplate what they had just watched. The loud music, dancing and bright colours were all very exciting and designed to lure viewers into watching more and more of the channel’s videos.

However, as Jesse turned it over and over in their mind, they couldn’t help but focus on how every video ended with a plea for donations from the grinning lead speaker or how, despite the videos claiming to promote peace and equality, the comment sections of every video were filled with vitriol and hatred, aimed towards people like their friends Sam and Ash. But what especially stood out to Jesse, as they mulled over what they had watched, was the underlying message in nearly all the videos: Love is for everyone, but only if you look and think like we do.

‘Ping!’ Jesse sighed. 34 unread messages…