When you watch a really good movie, you see characters in outfits that look appropriate to the setting. You see backdrops in real locations that look realistic. You see cars and buildings that fit the mood and timeline of the movie. In general, you see things that make sense to your eyes based on the information that you have.
However, this is a deception. If you were to zoom out from the camera that you are watching the movie from, you see actors and actresses on the side of the set getting their smoke break-in. They’re wearing jackets to keep from getting cold. They have a makeup artist on standby to help do touchups as needed. Everything you see is an elaborate deception to make you feel, for a couple hours, like you are watching something that is real.
Those watching the movie (us as consumers) pay to be deceived. In fact, the better the deception, the more we are willing to pay and the faster we want it. When we hear that there is someone who is deceiving people extremely well, we rush to watch the deception. When the deception is not great and you don’t feel fully deceived, we will complain about it to our friends.
We humans are humans of quality, even if it’s in the quality of deception we enjoy.
This post inspired by Nathan Pyle’s Strange Planet comic strip.