Forgive me, Pedro Pascal, for I have sinned.

As someone in marketing and advertising and mostly improvising life, I might've (not so surprising) made things a tad traumatising. Pardon me the poetry, it's all I have to make up for the Franken-mess I have created.

Let me explain.

Look at love. We watched DDLJ, You've Got Mail and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. Naturally, we wanted love. So, the next logical move? Al partners! We're outsourcing affection and human connection, and I swear to god ChatGPT is more emotionally available than any boy I've ever been with but was that the point?

You know what my feed looks like? Sustainable queen. Zara Haul. Metal Straw. Food Vlog. Influencer gets PR package wrapped in 400 tons of plastic. Same influencer shames another for using plastic bag while buying bhindi. Under all the labels of slow-mornings and clean-living lie 13 step skincare routines. Quiet luxury actually costs three months salary (but no-cost EMI, yay.).

Don't even get me started on main-character energy. Remember when main characters had... character?
Quirks. The works? Yeah, now they have Stanley Cups. Also, everyone has the same drip and the same haircut.

All our ads are different brands, but they look the same. Celebrities in a blender, brand call out garnished in the end.

Pedro, my confession is coming from a place of deep, deep guilt.

I feel as advertisers and marketers, we create culture. That's power, right? We all know the Spiderman quote. My Spidey senses tell me that we all threw a lot of spaghetti on the wall, and well, someone forgot to clean up.

It's not a generation thing. At all. Me, as I write this - speak about burnout and mental health. But my need to be visible, thriving, alive-ing on LinkedIn is a full-time job. We say something. We do something else. I'm afraid this jargon has made it to real life.

The say-do gap.

Oh crap. I did this. I sold them 'authenticity' and directed their vulnerability and staged their honesty and I proceeded to put a branded watermark on it. Of course, the vendors I worked with sent me the invoice. They called it a culture shift. We called it a campaign.

I softly coaxed them into the 'buy now' button through an aesthetically beige lit hallway. I told them they don't need a filter. Just my product - which will make them seem richer and prettier and ittier and bittier.

I made them buy into sustainability with totes that had sassy 'save the planet' notes. Green moodboards and environment day, add a few trees being planted and you're golden. I mean green. Know what I mean?

But worst of all, Pedro... I commodified their need for love. I helped birth romance with algorithms and called it innovation. Al companions, chatbots that remember your birthday, personalised playlists that feel like someone knows you - I optimised affection into deliverables. Love became convenient. and convenience is excellent for retention metrics. 1 apologize for making emotional labour an on-demand product.

I am beyond absolution. For this is my job. 

Can I be absolved? I don't know the rites. It wouldn't even be right. But here's what I'll do, Pedro. 

I'll try: stop using 'authenticity' as a one-size creative brief, stop pretending sustainability is a mood board, and just stop being so 'them' and start being 'us'. I'll give myself time to be inconveniently slow. I'll resist the urge to algorithmically optimise feelings.

But let's not pretend this is only my fault. You clicked, you bought, you liked. You reposted, and you made it true. Forgive me, Pedro, and then look in the mirror and ask yourself - you bought it too, didn't you? 

The author is creative director, McCann Worldgroup. This article first appeared in the Ocotber issue of Manifest. Click here to buy it.