AP Image

As the process of globalization trudges on day after day, its primary means of oppression must strengthen, broaden, and perhaps most sinister, appear more attractive. The wolf in sheep‰’s clothing now nestles into the sheep‰’s skin. Mile after mile, new Internet connections are laid, more geographic and temporal spaces enclosed in the invisible fence called freedom. Thumbs scroll through Buzzfeed listicles like hamsters on wheels, simultaneously powering the oppressor‰’s vessel of enslavement and burning out the very energy needed to break from these chains.

Who, the curious reader may ask, exactly is this parasite draining our life sources? For what purpose? The answer is at once painfully obvious, yet obscures itself like a raven in a flock of sparrows. The enemy is the entertainment that you most love, a perennial Trojan horse embedded in screens, speakers, and texts. The horrifying part is that they‰’ve migrated into our brains and hearts, ripping our loves ones away like a baby from the teat. 

They live off of our emotional energies; our very ability to love becomes an oxygen tank for an extraterrestrial chain-smoker. The battleground is all around us: the stimulating, hypnotic bass of a frat dude‰’s car, the sickly clerical blue glow of an iPhone pressed to the face of his passengers, the macroelectronic waves emanating from the radio tower.

You cannot escape a prison if you do not know you are in one. The first battle is simply looking around, to our eyes, to our ears, to our hearts, and finding the chains that bind them.

The greatest sin is doubling down on your own oppression, making your jail cell into a bed, and mistaking your enslavement for power. Take this direct quote from an unashamedly exploited American student, Dilla Sylvia: “BeyoncÌ© wakes me up feeling flawless, pumps me up when I feel most down. She‰’s Queen Bey, dancing to her is amazing, it makes you feel like you run the world. I‰’m crazy in love.‰Û 

Matt Goldman offered this praise of country star Luke Bryan: “Whenever I hear his songs, I know it’s going to be my kind of night. You know what I mean, beer in my hand, pretty girl by my side, just floating down the river.”

Unsurprisingly, this expression of love reads exactly like a line from the artists’ brainwashing script. Their videos are strewn with triangles, taunting their minions and sniggering to their fellow rulers. Fortunately for them, the scheme is going exactly to plan and by the time the world exits its cave, they‰’ll be light-years away.