Sunday Essays #5: Pre-Packaged Opinions are Poisoning the Well

you buying your viewpoints off Amazon Prime too?

Imagine you live with five other people.

Could be family, roommates, whatever.

You re-arrange the living room furniture while everyone else is out.

Some people in the home will like it, some will dislike it, maybe even one or two hate it.

Either way, you’re guaranteed to have five varying opinions.

Opinions are like….

I never really cared for that phrase, it’s pretty crude.

Doesn’t change the fact it’s true as can be!

We need opinions in this world.

They lead to discourse, debate, discussion…which inevitably gives way to collaboration and innovation and so on and so forth.

So how ironic is it, in a time when we have the ability to spout off any viewpoint we please into the ether at any given moment, our opinions have all but become commodified?

The Beygency

Saturday Night Live had a skit about ten years ago called The Beygency, the premise of which was essentially anyone that didn’t immediately gush over the latest Beyonce performance was captured by a government agency and taken away.

(Which is probably a lot less funny and a whole lot more plausible given recent events, but we don’t have to go there today)

It was a comical but honest critique of how, even back then, not prostrating yourself before a cultural figure that had been deemed by the Big Machine to be unassailable was social suicide.

Little did we know how much that phenomenon was going to continue to grow.

The Benito Bowl

Super Bowl LX’s actual football portion was almost overshadowed by (yet another) culture war, with Bad Bunny being assigned the halftime show.

We all saw it- and there’s an awful lot of thinkpieces on this very site about it.

We’re not gonna go down that path, but rather look at how this was an exposé on the pre-packaged opinion.

Look, before I go further- I got a lot of Spotify saves of Bad Bunny songs.

It’s fun stuff, it’s sexy.

Women like it.

It’s good rhythmic background music for when you and your hitting partner have the tennis courts to yourselves and can break out the speaker.

That ticks more than enough boxes over here.

Hate It or Love It, Vol. 1,000,000

The script seemed to be the same after the halftime show- there were really only two opinions to be had, two camps to be in.

It was sort of like picking a Pokémon gym leader when the game starts.

You could pick Emily (she/her), who instantaneously thought it was the greatest thing she’s seen in the music world since Taylor Swift dropped an Easter Egg (aka a carefully crafted marketing ploy concocted by a Manhattan agency on an 8-figure retainer) about her latest album.

Anyone who disagrees is equivalent to a domestic terrorist in her eyes.

Her opposite number would be Bill, whose Twitter profile picture is him in sunglasses in his car, who preferred Turning Point USA’s YouTube halftime show with Kid Rock instead.

Bill channels his anger from not getting enough matches on apps with his fishing photos out on the fact the halftime show was in a language he can’t speak.

You almost can’t fault these characters or their adherents- it’s a downstream effect from the mainstream media.

Bad Bunny hadn’t even peeled off his (honestly super cool) performing outfit before Rolling Stone was quick to anoint the performance online:

Had this come out a week later, you’d understand it.

But art takes time to assess and digest.

Our favorite albums don’t become our favorite albums right away, unless we fall in love with the optics of it being one of our favorite albums, which of course makes the whole thing ring hollow.

You need to listen to it a few times, in different realms- with the rain pelting the car windows on a night drive, or alone in bed, and then out with other people.

Prematurely giving someone their flowers on a grand scale feels less like an honest review and more like eerie social instruction.

It’s Beygency-coded.

Art in all its forms has texture, layers.

It simply isn’t digestible in a single serving.

This has existed for centuries- literature and a subgenre of literary critique right behind it.

We’re not exactly reinventing the wheel here.

The Quiet Social Experiment

Writers like to observe things, it’s literally somehow baked into our DNA.

Family, friends, social media acquaintances- I kept stock in my head of who said what after the show was done.

You just knew who couldn’t wait to come out and gush on their IG story that it was the greatest thing ever, and vice versa.

A digital footrace to virtual signal, no different than making a big deal about cleaning up the coloring supplies in the kindergarten classroom so you get another gold star next to your name on the whiteboard.

The deflating fact of the matter is that I had, like, a 98% hit rate.

Luckily, we’re not all wired this way.

I hold out hope the minority can flip and become the majority.

Homeless Opinion Crew Reporting In

So, what to make of it if you’re in this minority?

What if neither encampment of opinion is enticing to you?

If the ever-present modern need for an extreme viewpoint has become, like it has for so many of us, like swallowing the bitterest pill?

Well then I’d say, my dear reader, the onus is on you to lead the change.

Sure, you risk the mini-ostracization at the brunch/dinner/coffee clutch/group chat/office water cooler.

The alignment of authenticity should sooth the discomfort.

It’s in this honesty of viewpoint that you serve the greater good.

Wrapping It Up

Anything you and I enjoy was borne out of discourse and debate.

Inherent tribalism and lines in the sand make projects and innovations a non-starter.

The very iPhone you read this on went through a thousand different iterations and tweaks, and the iOS software even more so.

Aren’t we happy that it exists?

As with almost anything in this world, the sweet spot lies somewhere in the middle.

The more frank and honest we are, the more we listen (!!) and have discussions that lead us forward.

Looking both ways for safety is for crossing streets, not expressing yourself.

Obviously, I’d prefer you go out there and show love to someone or something that people around you are trashing, but if it’s to the contrary, hey- at least you’re staying true.

You can tell me you absolutely hated this essay.

I’d find that oddly refreshing.

Talk soon 🫶🏻

John Abbate

2/16/2026