Reality Is Dead—Long Live AI-Curated Narrative Of Engagement And Outrage

There was a time when reality had charm. It arrived without filters, had wrinkles of honesty, and walked with the awkward gait of facts. You could trust it, at least most of the time.

Now it is over, and the old times will only remain a flashback of memories for the elder generation and a land of fantasy for the new generation.

Reality has left the town. Permanently. In its place, we have something that pretends to be reality—dressed up, cropped, edited, AI-polished, and algorithmically blessed for maximum engagement. It looks like the truth. It sounds like the truth. But poke it once, and it wobbles like a CGI jellyfish.

Welcome to the ‘Age of the False Narrative’.

In the beginning, there was truth. Then came opinions. Soon, we had content. And now, what we worship is the narrative—grand, glowing, shareable, and usually false.

We think we discuss what has happened. However, in reality, we discuss how it’s framed. The truth is less important than the caption, tone, and tweet, and whether it aligns with the community's belief system. We live in a world where a video clip requires a trigger warning and a quote necessitates five disclaimers and a legal team to defend it.

We’ve outgrown the old Gandhian monkeys. Today, we need an upgrade.

See nothing, because it’s probably deep-faked, poorly cropped or part of a campaign.

Hear nothing, because audio clips now come with background music and synthetic outrage.

Say nothing, because the moment you do, you’ve chosen a side, invited a backlash, and become a meme.

The new mantra, well known but hardly practised, is: Don’t speak unless you're ready to trend for the wrong reasons.

You still trust headlines? Oh, sweet last remnants of fast-disappearing innocence. It’s not important whether it's true or false; what's important is that it's engaging. What trends is not what’s true but what’s profitable. The algorithm doesn’t care about facts; it only asks, Will you click, will you rage, and will you share?

We’ve entered a time where multiple truths co-exist, none of them verified, and all of them confidently shouted into the void. More digital freedom has only made the truth blurry. Think of it as a Karan Johar plot with too many narrators and no interval. Earlier, movies were made with two endings; now they are being released with two endings!

Forget the oft-repeated clichéd statement: a picture is worth a thousand words! Now it’s worth just the “context”.

Show me an image of a man helping a woman up, and I’ll show you fifty interpretations. Was it kindness? Harassment? PR stunt? Political theatre? Depends on who’s posting and who’s zooming in, who is paying, and who is being paid.

Narratives are stitched together with half-facts, quarter-truths, and the full force of our attention spans. Everyone’s building their own reality set—liberals, conservatives, influencers, tech bros, crypto believers, WhatsApp uncles, and Gen Z nihilists. Each in their own echo chamber, surrounded by memes and metaphors.

Truth, if it ever appears, is quickly told to sit down and stop ruining the engagement.

This epidemic of narratives isn’t limited to politics or religion. It’s in love, friendship, fitness, food, family, and even death. AI now creates model families with eerily perfect diversity. Influencers cry on cue, and even your holiday memories have a filter and a hashtag.

Was your trip magical? Or just shot well in golden hour?

Are you in love? Or just dating someone with a pleasing Instagram aesthetic?

The saddest part? The system is designed to reward belief over doubt, rage over nuance, and volume over reason. Virality pays. Outrage scales. Silence? That’s just bad branding.

Which is why the smartest thing to do now is… nothing. No comment. No opinion. Maybe just a laugh. Or a yawn.

Because the moment you say something or anything, someone, somewhere, will spin it into a narrative, slice it into shorts, add dramatic music, and launch a hashtag. The circus never stops.

So, here's a not-so-radical thought for Gandhiji’s three monkeys: to rebrand themselves, or they will be branded by default as inappropriate, irrelevant and non-engaging.

Don’t believe what you see because it’s probably deep-faked, poorly cropped, or part of a campaign.

Don’t trust what you hear because audio clips now come with background music and synthetic outrage.

Don’t speak unless you are convinced of what you are saying because the moment you do, you’ve chosen a side, invited a backlash, and become a meme.

That might be the only way to survive this avalanche of constructed realities.

Because the truth is no longer what happened, it’s what went viral. And reality? That poor old thing now lives in the attic, next to your landline and moral compass.

Unplug once in a while. Sit in the sun. Stare at the sky. Reclaim your own thoughts before they’re subtitled by someone else.

And if that sounds too idealistic, here’s your backup plan: laugh loudly. At the drama, at the narratives, at the idea that we still know what’s going on.

Because the truth is—we don’t.

And in a world where everything is staged, the only real thing left… might be confusion.

Sanjeev Kotnala is a brand and marketing consultant, writer, coach and mentor.