Until recently, replica culture lived in the shadows. But something’s changed. TikTok “luxury plugs,” WhatsApp vendors, and live-stream auctioneers—they’ve taken center stage. A new global market place, loud and open, pretending to be the original source for Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, and even Hermès.

And people are buying it. Buying into it. Hungry for the illusion of elegance at a discount, they scroll and bid and celebrate.

There’s a dull ache that sets in when someone starts dressing their fear in citations and calling it courage.

A kind of exhaustion that isn’t born of shock—but of repetition.

Because we’ve heard this before.

The framing is familiar: identity in crisis, values under siege, civilization in decline, and somewhere—inevitably—a warning about Islam.

You start with reverence for institutional voices and end with a plea to preserve Christian Europe.

In between: migration framed as proxy war, refugee movements compared to Trojan horses, and a string of citations deployed like a protective spell.

It’s not insight.

It’s performance.

And it’s boring.

America—after many years of never minding her business—finally had a date with destiny. Only this destiny came in the form of an over-tanned, real estate mogul turned reality TV star who had decided that global diplomacy should be run more like a casino. In comes Donald J. Trump, a man who viewed the world less like a stage for careful negotiation and more like a yard sale where everything had to go—alliances, treaties, stability, you name it.

The truth of the matter, my dear friend, is that the world does not care if you are paying attention. Global affairs affect the economy—the war in Ukraine has spiked food and energy prices worldwide; it affects your favorite apps—TikTok or even Instagram can get banned because of geopolitical tensions; and even your future—climate policies, immigration laws, and international conflicts directly affect your daily life.

This is the world and all of its affairs. A messy, relentless, tangled thing. A never-ending project, a book with too many authors, a story that will never cease to write itself.

And you? Whether you choose to or not, are already a part of it.