Nowadays, we hardly have enough financial means to fulfill our basic needs, let alone indulge in luxuries. But we are surrounded by digital advertising machines showcasing a few success stories of internet celebrities. It makes one drool imagining what it's like to be them. Thankfully, their secret is easy to find, because sharing it has been a recent trend; and by definition, celebrities can't fall behind on trends, or they will loose their title.

The key ingredient is passive ; passive income, passive attention, passive weight loss, passive everything. Loose weight while eating; learn a language while sleeping, earn a decent salary while sunbathing. This passivist culture is a stage following the establishment of fast food culture, where we desired to take waiting out of wanting. Since then, we have been striving to make everything faster; faster food, faster delivery, faster recovery, etc. Passivism is different in that it attempts to take doing out of wanting too. I much prefer passivism though; because faster services inevitably translates into harsher working conditions for workers, but passive developments does not, hopefully. Besides, in its ideal sense, it may be a gateway for a wider population to have access to a more comfortable life. However, this does not mean the passive culture is devoid of dangers. In fact, I think the danger with them is twofold: that the vehicle for reaching "deigity-for-all" is dysfunctinal, and that the passive culture permeates into forbidden realms. Both of these threats cast a dark shadow over our heads as we speak. Let us take passive earning as an example. Except for a few activities such as writing books or creating meaningful content, in majority of the cases the business model for passive earning relies on attracting sustained attention of consumers, so as to create a platform for businesses to advertise on. In comparison to earlier models, where businesses contacted other businesses and media outlets to advertise their products and services, businesses now approach normal people to do that. This is why people are being sensitized towards, and addicted to, attention seeking, since their subsistence now depends on it. I used addiction to describe the state, because all elements of conditioning required for development of addiction are present in the process. First of all, the action taps into pandemic deficiencies of modern societies; deficiency of human contact, deficiency of approval, deficiency of healthy modelling and deficiency of unconditional sharing, which have lead to deep-rooted insecurities amongs people. This is the pain element. There is a reward system in place too; a reward system that is set on a variable interval, meaning the reward does not come at fixed intervals or ratios, making it unpredictable, and hence most addictive. The reward also comes in psychological, as well as physical forms. Large number of likes and views first translate into self-acceptance and satisfaction, which is a psychological consequence, and then translate into income, which is the physical outcome. In addition to common symptoms shared by all addictions, this particular addiction eventuates in victims ceasing to see the world, but through the eyes of their viewers. Their presence will gradually vanish the more they seek the drug, and their lives will turn into a movie theatre the more they share it with others. It will lead to a large vulnerable population with external locus of control, which can in turn lead to all sorts of social, economic and cultural problems.

With regards to permeability of passivism, my concern is that passiveness has contaminated parts of our lives, which needed protection. We now have passive activism , which is when we do our share of activism by clicking on a link, liking a video or leaving a post, before closing our laptop and going to bed. We hope while we sleep, our post frees Julian Assange, our like saves the Earth, and our shared link illuminates the uneducated or eliminates homelessness. But while we sleep, nothing happens. Nothing happens except our links, likes and posts enter the magnetic field of social media, and become polarized and shot into distant poles; where they are liked or hated by other passive activists. Even then, the number of likes never beat the cute cat, the sexy 18-year-old big bank, and the dance videos. So, basically, while we sleep, our links and likes and posts are thrown into a blackhole, where they no longer have any substance. Just like a dream; as if they were never real, and will never be.

And the politicians are ecstatic about this. Once in a while, they summon the giants, and put on a show of telling them off, which normally goes like this:

Senator: Answer me with a "yes" or a "No".
Giant's Boss: Yes, senator.
Senator: Can you provide so and so information to this committee?.
Giant's Boss: Senator, that is something that I will follow up with you, or your team, after the hearing.

The question is, do they ever? Shouldn't the senators ask the giants to come back in a week with the requested information? Do they? I guess we never know, because the corporate media is also run on a profit-generating model, and hence covers newsworthy and trending news only. They are the judges of what is newsworthy too. And as far as I can see, they think the hearing is newsworthy, but the follow-up, not so much.

This is why every time the show is up, the giants seem to be sent back to their duty of diffusing people's tendency to be active and unified, with more of "Cuz I got a small waist, pretty face with a big bank".