The Committee for Real Reality

The Committee for Real Reality convened every Tuesday in Conference Room B, which existed on Wednesdays and was a broom closet on Thursdays¹.

“First order of business,” announced Brad from Sales (definitely human), “determining which timeline’s Instagram stories are canon.”

Jennifer from Accounting raised her hand. “All of them?”

“None of them?”

“The ones with the most likes?”

The continental breakfast in the corner achieved sentience through accumulated engagement, its croissants now capable of limited speech².

“If I may,” wheezed a pain au chocolat, “I exist in seventeen different Instagram stories, each with different levels of flakiness. Which me is the real me?”

This was the problem with the Convergence of 2149. When all social media platforms began bleeding into each other, reality became a matter of committee.

“Motion to declare Thursdays non-canonical,” suggested Marcus from IT, who existed only on Thursdays.

“Seconded,” said the collective consciousness of everyone who’d ever posted “Thank God It’s Friday” on a Thursday by mistake.

Brad checked his definitely human wristwatch, which showed five different times. “According to TikTok, this meeting already ended. According to LinkedIn, it’s a networking opportunity. According to Twitter, it never happened but the discourse about it is trending.”

“What about the Zuckerberg Paradox?” Jennifer asked, referring to the temporal anomaly where Mark Zuckerberg’s posts created the past that necessitated their creation³.

The sentient breakfast pastries huddled together, whispering about the Time Before Likes, when reality was singular and boring.

“I propose,” Brad said, his human smile stretching beyond the usual parameters, “that we let people subscribe to their preferred timeline. Premium members get canonical status. Everyone else exists in the comments section.”

The motion passed unanimously, except for the Danish, which abstained on grounds of being too flaky to vote.