Tony Soprano is a narcissistic, violent, lying, self-serving sociopath who betrays nearly everyone who loves him and yet, we root for him.
Why?
Because we’ve been emotionally manipulated to see complexity as justification, and dysfunction as depth. It’s not storytelling anymore, it’s psychological engineering.
What does it say about society today?
It says we’re desensitized to cruelty and numb to moral consequence. We admire power, even when it’s grotesque, because we’ve been trained to conflate dominance with success, and charisma with character.
We don’t really like Tony. We like the fantasy of getting away with everything. Getting our way.
We like watching someone break all the rules without paying the real price. That’s the seduction.
How does it all end with Tony? We will never know.
No resolution. No confirmation. No redemption. No retribution. Just silence.
Because if Tony dies in front of us, the illusion breaks.
If he lives happily ever after, the moral debt is ignored.
But by not showing us anything, the writers trap us in our own projection.
And now Reality TV?
That’s not reality. That’s low-cost behavioral manipulation, a carnival of dysfunction that feeds voyeurism, numbs empathy, and lowers the collective bar for dignity.
Enjoying the name calling and fights. This generations, Friday Night Fights.
It’s a breeding ground for mediocrity and manufactured outrage, where the stupidest, loudest, most abrasive voices are rewarded with screen time.
This outrage gets clicks and shares, and clicks feed algorithms, and algorithms control what we see. Your attention is the product.
We keep watching, because we’ve been programmed to from childhood.
Because distraction feels better than introspection.
If people stayed entertained, you don’t have to keep them thinking. They do the thinking for you.
What Tony Soprano reveals, beneath the gabagool, prosciutto and panic attacks, is that his character believes we’re not rooting for him…
But he’s wrong, we are.
We’ve outsourced our moral compass to writers’ rooms HBO and Netflix queues.
And the compass isn’t broken.
It’s been purchased long ago with your soul, to consume the poison we consume everyday.
c 2025 Chu The Cud
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Chu The Cud 