Alternative Fun Facts: The TV of Tomorrow

The future staring back at you from your TV screen has never looked better | Fiction | Fresh Soup

Collage by Noa Gana

Forget about artificial intelligence that draws any image you can imagine. Forget about some newer, even more advanced AI that will turn your shallowest musings into an incisive, well-reasoned essay. Comparing either of those to TMTV™ (Tailor-Made TV) is about the same as comparing a rusty scooter to a gleaming Tesla. TMTV™ users can ask the app to instantly produce a one-of-a-kind series that accurately delivers every one of their wishes. All you have to do is type in, say, “14-episode dark thriller filmed in Iceland with dramatic action scenes but not too much violence starring Brad Pitt as a police officer and my college boyfriend as a serial killer who wants to eradicate joy from the world and eventually falls into an active volcano and plunges to his death,” and within seconds, the entire first season appears on your screen—and on no one else’s. And not just that, but every single episode is perfect: the pacing you love, the gory suspense, the soundtrack lifted straight from your playlist. So is it any wonder that TMTV™ became an overnight sensation? What kind of idiot would settle for the most-watched Netflix series, when instead she could binge on a completely new show, fresh from the oven, made with one single purpose: to make her, the viewer, the happiest customer in the universe!

There was no turning back: the streaming services collapsed like dominoes, closely followed by the broadcasting networks. The sole survivors of the TMTV™ tsunami that cost every Hollywood director and producer his job, were the news networks. But even CNN and Fox News didn’t last very long. Given the triumph of TMTV™, it was only a matter of time until TMTV-News came along: viewer-driven news content. Fantasizing about an update informing you that the candidate you voted for, who lost the election—actually won? Want to see live breaking news from the melting studio built on Antarctica, where the pundits who float on a glacier while arguing about the consequences of global warming include none other than Kim Kardashian, Genghis Khan, and the ripped winner of the latest season of Squid Game: Reality Version? Well, you can stop fantasizing and open your eyes: your personalized on-screen recommendations now include all your most private dreams.

TMTV™’s total takeover of the content world was fast and furious. And honestly? Why would you waste your time scrolling through the cupcakes your friend posted on Instagram, when you could be watching the MasterChef final, in which Marie Curie, John Wayne and Jeffrey Epstein go head-to-head in the dreaded “salty dessert” challenge?

Alongside its dizzying success, there were also some disgruntled purists who argued that tailor-made television disconnects us from each other and weakens our ability to function as a productive society. But of course none of this grumbling reached the screens—or the awareness—of any TMTV-News users, and not because the dissenters were silenced, but simply because people were too busy watching far more riveting news items. Like reports on the first-ever whale elected Prime Minister in New Zealand, a delicious and slimming new cancer medication, and a Chinese astronaut who landed on Venus and made a giant lava-sculpture that looked exactly like the head of your college boyfriend (the one who played the bad guy in that unforgettable Brad Pitt show) being crushed under a rock. And as soon as the news is over, you get the weather forecast you ordered: hot but not too hot, gentle breeze, seagulls singing acapella as they fly past. That’s not the forecast for the world, though. The world is so last decade. Your own personal forecast shows only what you’ll see through your TV screen tomorrow. And between you and me? That’s all that really matters. At least to you.

Translated by Jessica Cohen