I looked at marketing, I looked at propaganda, I looked at influence, I looked at politics – almost all of it put humans at the center of it. It’s like anything you want in this world can come only and only through humans and human worship. You compliment them. You pass tests in their systems. You get good scores. You build trust in their systems, and they reward you with good things.
Influencing them or convincing them can happen only through this human worship. Well, reality might be neutral – that humans and the world exist – but to be worth anything in this human system, you have to think that the human, the conscious, their whims is the primary object, and everything else exists in relation to that. That they are at the centre of the universe. Not even that, they are the universe.
Nothing can be on the equal footing of humans. To put so is to disqualify yourself. Humans are the gods, their conscious and the whims shall be bowed down to by communication or action. You have to imagine a world where if the god is not respected, the universe just ceases to exist. You respect the god in every action you take and now you have this world that exists and will continue to exist because you respect the god. Subjugate the world and extract its resources.
The universe you actually live in is entirely human-mediated, and there is no path to anything you want that doesn’t go through human approval.
Every single thing you could possibly desire—money, safety, love, recognition, resources, power, knowledge, even just being left alone—requires other humans to give it to you or allow you to have it. You cannot opt out of this. You cannot find some clever workaround. The money is controlled by humans. The jobs are given by humans. The laws are made by humans. The attention is granted by humans. The food distribution systems are run by humans. Even if you try to escape to a cabin in the woods, humans own the land, humans could come take it, humans control whether you’re allowed to exist there undisturbed. Humans are the gatekeepers to everything. And gatekeepers must be appeased. You can call it worship, you can call it service, you can call it respect—the structure is identical. You orient yourself toward their desires, you demonstrate value in terms they recognize, you pass their tests, you earn their trust, and only then do they grant you access to what you want.
Play the man, not the ball.
That’s why for content I developed the HECBSW framework
Humans > Emotions > Brand/Content > Symbols > World
Humans are at the center of this whole thing, and you take every step to keep them happy. Emotions are their ambassadors and the vehicle to connect with them. So you try to tap into those emotions. Stringing emotions well is equal to keeping humans on your side as well. Brand/content is the center point of this whole system because, while you are trying to tap into the humans, you want to channel it into something. If it’s a political cause, or commercial interests, or power consolidation, you have an object that is at the center of this. It may be a brand, it may be a political vision, it may be personal status. To aid yourself in this process, you can talk beyond just the object at the centre and the emotions of the humans you are stringing. You can pull out symbols from the world. But both of them are subjugated by the brand or content. Those things are there to worship the central object, like we do with humans using the brand/content.
The Grand Canyon doesn’t matter; what matters is that humans feel awe, and you can attach that awe to your product. The appeasement of humans is central and as continuous as possible. Deviation from centrality or timelapses are sins that disqualify you, and that disqualification means you not getting the thing you want.
You are special. You are at the center of the world, and you can get whatever you want. But to do that, you have to acknowledge that humans are also at the center of the universe. And to get what you want, you must commit to human worship.
Examples can be as simple as:
- A marketer tapping into nostalgia and selling some products
- A demagogue tapping into hate and fear to get into power
- Some scammer appeasing to humans and then betraying them
They keep worshipping till they get what they want and then dip. The worship isn’t sincere; it’s functional. It’s a transaction with a clear exit point. Use of emotion in this system in no way means you are also feeling that emotion.
Thus, it does not need to be heartfelt or sincere, nor does it need to be eternal, but it shall be continuous for the duration necessary according to the purpose. Because after all, human worship is a religion with no faith. It also shows that you need to borderline worship people to get anything from them, even if it is their duty. Look at cold calls lol, their whole playbook is such worship material.
identify what humans want emotionally, attach your offering to those emotions, use symbols from the world as props, and maintain the performance until you get what you need.
For my HECBSW framework, symbols and emotions are really important tools to make any script come alive. And I think I have been thinking about visuals on a very surface level.Sure I would try to paint some picture using words. I would try to cram a bit of stuff into the text but when it came to visualizing I always was lacking something. Let’s explore this scenario. There is a guy who wants to buy something so he is watching your videos but he has a low budget so he needs to either lower his budget or increase his budget. A subpar metaphor and text pair here would: Text : the feature you want will not come in this price range. Visual : empty wallet A good example would be: Text : if you want that, you might need to save for more time. Visual : a sad man crouching under the table in the corner of the room. See? In the first example I showed the first thing that is connected to the situation. Money is connected, right? So the first instinct might be to show an empty wallet but what does that empty wallet signify for a human? We are supposed to put humans at the forefront of everything, right? We content or any influence tool should have humans at the center of it. They are essentially human worship. Thus money can not be the metaphor at the centre of it. It has to be the person himself and the emotion he is feeling. Yes money is the symbol but it would work if we focused on the emotion more, right?And showed the symbol of money in just the text form and let the visual just be purely emotional. We might have to flip-flop between when to use text or visuals for symbols or emotions but you will acquire that skill set also as you keep writing.
That might also be why corporate videos feel so cringe that all the b-roll they use is object-oriented and not stress-oriented. That their script will be talking about something but there is nothing human in it. It is not placing humans at the center.
I am revisiting this after a week.
After feedback I understand that humans are not just emotions. While emotions are a powerful anchor, they are limited in their scope. If we just target emotions, they restrict us to the present and past because mostly that is where the emotions are coming from. Of course future anxieties also contribute to it but we can represent them even better if we also account for needs and wants. So while targeting humans, you should not just go for emotions but also their needs and wants. When someone is watching your video, they are watching it to be entertained, to feel smarter, to get a laugh out of it, to feel intensity.
So an effective content/brand brings out symbols from the world to cater not only to the emotions of the humans but also to their needs and wants. That’s how you commit to true human worship. There are two dimensions you have to account for and Just going after emotions and neglecting needs and wants will make your script lack substance.