" Where are the backstages? "
When life becomes a grand stage,we master the act and quietly hide the truth.The backstages are forgotten,and with them fade feelings that never found anyone to see them.
In this wide world, society sometimes—or more often, always—forces you to fake it.
To wear well-crafted masks you slowly get used to.Masks that have nothing to do with your truth, your essence, with who you really are with the person hidden deep inside you.
And so, whether we like it or not, society remains harsh.A world where you're pushed to pretend to be someone you're not, just to fit into what’s called normal, acceptable...
But why?
Is sadness not a natural feeling?
Is pain really a sign of weakness?
Is crying a kind of defect?
Why?
Maybe just because your sadness isn’t serious enough.Maybe you are the problem!You're exaggerating, you're overreacting...
Especially in a society that doesn't believe in depression,or even mental exhaustion at a young age.
That’s not your right, they say; You have a house, a car, a school, a family...What more do you need?
So, the safest choice? Acting...Pretending you're fine all the time.Why wouldn’t you be okay?
The real issue lies in how well you master the role.Until, one day, you start acting even to yourself—without realizing.
Where do the real feelings hide, away from all eyes?Where does the pain, the loneliness, the inner battle gather—when there’s no space to express it?
Backstages are not places.They are silent moments, a sigh in the dark, or a glance no one notices.
In the end, you’ll forget out of habit that backstages ever existed…!
And you !Do you have your own backstage?Do you dare to enter it?
From someone who loves philosophy and emotional reflections.
About the Creator
Malak
A thinker, and a seeker of meaning. I write not to impress, but to express what lies beneath our depths, staying true to the meaning of being human."
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Standing While Falling
Quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche "He who wrestles long with monsters should beware lest he himself become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. Man is not destroyed by suffering, but by the meaning he makes of it."
By LUCCIAN LAYTH5 days ago in Critique
Angry People Click More: The Economics of Manufactured Dissent
(Ideas from the book The Economic Policy of Online Media: Manufacture of Dissent, Routledge, 2024) Abstract This article examines the formula ‘angry people click more’ as a core logic of contemporary online media and as a structural transformation of propaganda in the digital age. It argues that the defining feature of the current attention economy is not only the circulation of misinformation, but the systematic deployment of openly implausible claims designed to provoke moral outrage and sustain profitable engagement cycles. The analysis links Oxford’s 2025 Word of the Year ‘rage bait’ to earlier lexical markers of epistemic crisis such as ‘truthiness’ and ‘post-truth’, and situates this trajectory against the older ‘manufacture of consent’ model of Herman and Chomsky. While classical propaganda in totalitarian and mass-media systems sought ideological unity through censorship and the Big Lie, the emerging Propaganda 2.0 model, articulated by Peter Ayolov, monetises anger by manufacturing dissent and deliberately populating the public sphere with absurd, polarising narratives. The article interprets this dynamic through the allegories of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ and Václav Havel’s greengrocer, showing how the move from fearful silence to permanent online rage changes both the psychology and political economy of propaganda. Drawing on Evgeny Morozov’s critique of fake-news moral panics, Frances Haugen’s disclosures about Facebook, and the documentary The Social Dilemma, it concludes that anger has become a tradable asset and that blatant lying has shifted from an authoritarian instrument of control to a market mechanism in a global ‘free trade in slogans’.
By Peter Ayolov3 days ago in Critique
Comments (1)
This article really makes you think. It's so true that society often pressures us to act like we're okay when we might not be. I've been in situations where I've had to put on a front. It's exhausting. Makes me wonder how many people are hiding their true feelings. Do we all have a backstage like this? And how do we find the courage to face what's really going on inside? It's a tough but important question.