It is often presented as a reason for nihilism or melancholy, that our lives are ultimately fleeting, insubstantial, and almost certainly destined for oblivion, leaving behind nothing to remember or memorialize us; but I think there’s a much stranger fate taking shape at the moment, which is that, no matter what we do, it is as if we cannot disappear. We can always be found. We, in a sense, cannot be left behind; we will always be remembered and carried along with everyone else—a statement that perhaps once inspired reassurance and comfort, even cultural cohesion, but increasingly feels like an authoritarian threat.

— Geoff Manaugh, Seer, BLDGBLOG, 2025