Lost in the Digital Wilds

I could have shared this as a simple post. Just typed out my thoughts, hit publish, and let it disappear into the digital stream like everything else. But I wanted to do something different. Something that contrasted the idea itself. So I made a zine, printed, physical, left in the real world for someone to find.

This could go horribly wrong.

Maybe no one finds them.

Maybe someone throws them away.

Or maybe, just maybe, someone picks one up, turns the pages, and pauses.

A World Built to Keep Us Apart

We, as humans, have always been good at creating barriers. We built cities from stone, sheltering ourselves from the wild. No longer surrounded by nature, we crafted a different kind of jungle, one where the only real danger comes from our fellow man.

And now, we’ve done it again.

Only this time, our fortresses are digital. Walls of distraction. Houses of lies. Rooms filled with echoes of what we want to hear.

We don’t talk. We message.

We don’t connect. We react.

We don’t look up. We scroll.

Walk through any city, any train station, any café, heads down, eyes locked onto screens. We stare into the black mirrors in our hands, scavenging the wilds of the internet, hunting for the next hit, the meme, the dopamine, the viral clip that keeps us tethered to a world that doesn’t really exist.

In a time of hyperconnectivity, we’ve never felt more alone.

The Algorithm Feeds the Fire

Social media knows you better than you know yourself.

You stop to watch a video of a cop acting like a complete asshole?

Congratulations. Here are thousands more.

You start believing it.

You start seeing it everywhere.

You start feeling angry.

And that anger doesn’t stay online.

It bleeds into the real world.

We are being fed a diet of aggravation. The algorithm knows what fuels us, outrage, division, tribalism. It wants us to pick a side. Everything is reduced to binary thinking:

You’re either with us or against us. Agree completely, or be cast out. Like, share, cancel, move on.

The internet thrives on this. The extremes, the loudest voices, the black-and-white narratives. But step outside, put the phone down, talk to real people, what do you find?

Most people don’t care about the outrage of the day.

Most people aren’t at war with each other.

Most people just want the same things, a safe place, a future, a bit of freedom.

And Yet, Here We Are

The first issue of ECHO is about this disconnect. About looking up. About questioning what we’re feeding our minds.

It’s out there, scattered in the real world, waiting to be found.

Maybe you’ll come across one in Antwerp. Maybe you stumbled upon it in the digital pile. Maybe you were just curious enough to look deeper.

Either way, the echo remains. ECHO

Want to explore more?

I made a short film about distraction, just quiet moments of people moving through the city, heads down, screens lit.

You can leave a comment here on the blog or over on YouTube. Either way, if you want to participate, I’d love to hear your thoughts. @