Gravity’s Rainbow is about a lot of things. It explores paranoia and conspiracy, culpability and morality. And all of this is set against the backdrop of Europe before, during, and directly after World War II. It’s dense and disturbing and devastating and somehow hilarious. It’s also all about plastic and how evil it is.

The essay I was working on was inspired by N+1’s really excellent polemic editorial titled, “Large Language Muddle.”  Part cultural commentary and part call to arms, the editorial rails against the creep of generative AI in society and posits an alternative approach straight out of the Luddites’ playbook. It was empowering. I was so ready to write my own screed against generative AI; I’d argue that it was the natural progression of the focus-group forged and hyper-managed style of communication so many of us find ourselves confined to upon entering the professional sphere. I’d deride the hellscape that is LinkedIn and the strange pseudo-human, algorithm-serving language it requires us to use.

The year is 2014. I’m 16 and my dream is to be a foreign correspondent for Vice Media. I romanticize the aesthetics of Occupy Wall Street and the Vietnam War protest movement, and my bedroom walls are plastered with photos snipped from a Time Magazine special on the Arab Spring. I procrastinate my math homework, instead pouring over features detailing strife in faraway places recounted by journalists who work at liberal legacy publications.