What is real? I know that sounds like I’m trying to “blow your mind, man.” But I don’t mean it in some kind of hippy-dippy, dorm-room philosophizing kind of way. They want a place where they know they’ll be seeing the world as it is, where they can drop their defenses against being fooled. In 2026, “What is real?” is a very pressing question. Won’t get fooled againIf you’ve spent any time on X, Instagram, or Facebook, you’ve probably gotten used to thinking about reality. Namely when coming across the countless AI-generated photos and videos flooding your timeline.Some, of course, are obviously fake. A penguin shaking hands with a polar bear on a dock while a moose looks on from a sailboat? Most likely AI. But with others it’s not so easy. Take that photo of the beautiful sunrise over those shining snow-covered mountains. Looks real … but it isn’t. Neither is that perfectly convincing woman talking about the scheduling app that helped her organize her life.Unless you are exceedingly discerning, you’ve probably been fooled by AI, even if just for a few seconds. You shouldn’t feel bad, and you shouldn’t feel like a dupe, even though you probably do. We weren’t made for this world of images that look 99.99999% real but are 0% so. What in our past would have ever prepared us for this world? Seeing is believing? That may have been true once upon a time, but no more.Shutter islandThere are a lot of implications here for society. How do we live in a half reality, half anti-reality world? How do we organize a society around truth when the truth is constantly muddied by false images and videos? How do we even talk to each other if we can’t reach a consensus on what’s in front of us? These are big questions without clear answers.But on a smaller, more granular, human level, I think something interesting is happening: People find themselves aching for more truth, more reality. Not everyone, of course. Some are going full steam into the Kafkaesque world of reality-nihilism. But others see the trap, the chaos, and the shallow ugliness of anti-reality.Earlier this year, I started a project by the name of Film 20. Essentially, it’s a place of pure reality in the form of film photography. It’s an archive of photos from real people and real places all around the world. No iPhone photos are allowed, no digital photos from DSLRs either. Only film; only reality.RELATED: The Kids Are Outside O.W. RootReality hungerAt first, our followers were mostly film photographers and film aficionados. But an interesting thing happened in the past few months. The account blew up in a substantial way. There are now nearly 29,000 people following Film 20, an account dedicated to documenting reality through the eyes of film photographers.Those 29,000 people aren’t all photographers, though some are — our DMs are flooded with submissions from wonderful photographers from all over. They aren’t just following for the nice photos either. I know because the primary sources of growth have been derived from posts underscoring the purpose of Film 20.”Never AI. Always reality. Only film.”People — 29,000 people — want a feed of reality and only reality. They want a place where they know they’ll be seeing the world as it is, where they can drop their defenses against being fooled. Cultivating authenticityI know that everyone doesn’t have this same kind of yearning for reality. I understand that these 29,000 are not representative of the general population in 2026. But I don’t think this desire is going away, and I don’t think the awareness of the shallow falseness of digital AI imagery is a short-term blip. The further we move into the AI world, the stronger this yearning for reality will be.The bleed of fake video and imagery into every corner of our digital world will continue for the foreseeable future. It will be annoying. Next year you will only see more fake videos than the last. So whether it is film photography, live music, local food, or real people with real emotions, the future of reality is one that will need to be cultivated and earnestly sought out. Just like we try to eat healthy and read good books, we will need to consciously make the choices that lead us toward reality in every way we can. Reality is good for the body, mind, and soul.
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