If You Buy the Premise, You Buy the Story

We don’t have conversations anymore—we have ideological real estate transactions.

Let’s kick this thing off with a lie. Not a malicious one, mind you. Not the kind politicians tell when they lick the boots of their corporate donors while giving Ted Talks on empathy. No, I’m talking about the honest kind of lie. The foundational kind. The kind of lie that every story, every campaign ad, every movie trailer, and every goddamned TEDxYouth talk starts with. That lie? The premise.

Because, baby, if you buy the premise, you buy the story.

And in 2025, most of us are loading up our digital shopping carts like it’s a Black Friday brawl outside a Best Buy in 1986. Only now, the VHS tapes are ideology, the Nintendo consoles are narratives, and the bloodied noses are replaced with hashtags and social credit.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s roll back to the beginning. Let’s talk about how we got suckered into buying the story of every bullshit movement, motivational hustle, and cultural panic by first nodding along to a shiny little premise, dressed up like Billy Idol in leather pants and menace.

You walk into a bar. There’s a woman red dress, mystery eyes, sipping bourbon like she owns the glassware. She smiles. You approach. You’re charmed. She tells you she’s a dancer. You buy the premise.

Cut to: two weeks later, you’re scratching places that should never itch and Googling phrases like “what does green discharge mean?”

That’s the danger of the premise. It doesn’t have to be true. It just has to be believable enough to get you to drop your pants of skepticism.

And that’s how we ended up living in a world where “Words are violence,” “All billionaires are evil,” and “Your silence is complicity” are not just bumper stickers—they’re belief systems.

The premise doesn’t need evidence. It doesn’t need a peer-reviewed study. It just needs to smell like something you might believe. Once you buy it, the rest of the story—no matter how ludicrous, contradictory, or flat-out nuts—rides in on the coattails of your compromised critical thinking.

Let’s talk culture war. Not the dumbed-down version where people scream at each other about drag queens in libraries or gas stoves. I’m talking about the deep, roiling trench warfare of narratives, identities, and power. You don’t win this war with facts—you win it with premises.

“If America was built on racism, it’s still racist.”

“If we don’t dismantle capitalism, we’ll never be free.”

“If you disagree with me, you hate me.”

Boom. Three loaded premises. And the moment someone buys one—even just a little—the entire narrative castle gets built on top of it, brick by smug brick.

We don’t have conversations anymore—we have ideological real estate transactions. “Would you like to put 20% down on this premise about systemic oppression? Great! Now enjoy this three-bedroom, two-bath narrative complete with guilt, shame, and an open-concept outrage kitchen.”

It’s like The Big Short, only everyone is betting on emotional currency and the banks are social media feeds.

Take a breath and admit something uncomfortable. We all do it. You. Me. Your barista with the purple hair and the nose ring that makes her look like a bull ready for auction or someone flirting with bisexuality without actually being bisexual. We tell stories to make sense of chaos. We create heroes and villains to comfort ourselves in a world that doesn’t give a flying fuck about our feelings.

And we build those stories on premises like Jenga towers made of assumptions and half-truths.

Want to start a cult? Begin with a premise that sounds like liberation. “You are not broken. The world is.” Want to sell a product? Try: “You deserve better.” Want to control a population? Go full Orwell: “This is for your safety.”

The problem isn’t that people lie. The problem is that people want to believe.

Premises are seductive. They whisper in our ears like Tim Curry in drag with devil horns, a metaphorical wet dream for chaos. They offer certainty. A villain to blame. A team to join. A dopamine hit of clarity in a world choked with complexity.

Once you buy the premise, the story writes itself. No nuance needed.

We used to sniff-test ideas. We used to have coffee-fueled debates with people we disagreed with. Now, we swipe left on their humanity the moment their premise doesn’t match ours.

You believe gender is a social construct? Cool. Let’s talk. But the minute your story requires me to pretend biological sex is imaginary, we’ve left the realm of ideas and entered the flat-earth society of moral theater.

And the thing is — skepticism isn’t cool anymore. It’s not fashionable. It’s not performative. It doesn’t look good on Instagram. It’s more like wearing acid-washed jeans in 2025 — functional but ignored. We’ve replaced doubt with dopamine, curiosity with clout.

Belief is now a costume, and everyone’s in drag.

Take a stroll through pop culture, and the rule becomes gospel.

Hollywood execs know if you can hook the audience with a premise—like, say, “What if The Goonies but with trauma and diversity?”—the rest of the plot can be duct-taped together with jump cuts and Jennifer Lawrence looking vaguely concerned.

In politics? It’s “What if the other side literally wants to kill your children?” And once you buy that, how could compromise ever be an option?

Even TikTok influencers, who speak with the cadence of a sentient avocado toast, get it. “Here’s why drinking celery juice cured my depression…”—you’re in, and now you’re watching a 45-second sermon on chlorophyll and trauma bonding.

So how do we stop buying garbage premises and the shitbag stories that follow? Here’s a few unmarketable, inconvenient truths:

1. Start by assuming everyone is trying to sell you something.

That doesn’t mean they’re evil. It just means they’ve got a story and they want your signature on the dotted line. Be stingy.

2. Ask “What’s the premise?” before you agree with the conclusion.

If the story ends with “So we should burn it all down,” trace the logic back like Indiana Jones following the map to the Holy Grail. Odds are the premise is made of styrofoam and slogans.

3. Practice intellectual masochism.

Read shit you disagree with. Sit in the discomfort. Let your premises be tested like a Cold War bomb shelter.

4. Don’t fall in love with your own narrative.

You are not the hero. You are not the villain. You are a background character in someone else’s fever dream. Own it.

Reality doesn’t care about your premise. It doesn’t follow act structures. It doesn’t resolve third-act tension with a monologue and a hug. Reality is more David Lynch than Steven Spielberg—incoherent, unsettling, occasionally brilliant, often unwatchable.

But that doesn’t stop us from trying to rewrite it.

“If you buy the premise, you buy the story” isn’t just a warning. It’s a fucking diagnosis. We are creatures of narrative, sure. But we’re also addicts. And the more we mainline belief without scrutiny, the more we lose the plot entirely.