When Did We Start Asking Permission?

I don't remember exactly when it happened, which is probably why it bothers me so much.

There was no announcement, no meeting, no moment where someone stood up and declared that creativity would now be measured, categorized, optimized, and ranked according to systems designed to maximize attention. Well, no meeting that we were invited to anyway. I'm sure there was some exclusive retreat attended by the shadier elements of the corporate oligarchy and their technocratic counterparts, held in a dark, smoke-filled room where everyone knew the secret handshake and someone in the corner was quietly dealing with the lingering side effects of kuru. 

It happened quietly, slowly enough that most of us mistook adaptation for progress. One day you were making things because creating felt less like a choice and more like a primordial instinct living somewhere behind your ribs, and the next day you were wondering whether the idea ricocheting around your skull like a toddler who somehow multiclassed into a level 5 Dark Paladin of ADHD was worth bringing into the world if it wasn't going to feed the machine

Film Doesn't Expire. Your Expectations Do.

Everybody talks about expired film like it's some kind of horrific event.

A roll hits a date stamped on a box and suddenly people act like it's a rotting bunch of bananas you bought because you wanted to start eating healthier. Eww the brown spots. They look at it with suspicion. They wonder if it's still good. They ask if it can be trusted to take those extremely important pictures of your cat and a door knob that looked cool.