Brain Rot As Load Bearing Structure
The word “brain rot” implies decay, but sometimes I wonder if it’s more like a form of crystallization - after consuming hours of slop, your thoughts hardening around random pieces of internet culture until they become load-bearing structures in your mind. This is to say, I’ve been thinking about Among Us lately. A lot. Too much.
Maybe the brain rot is finally starting to change my brain chemistry.
Or maybe I’m getting old and reminiscing about the good o’ days.
It’s strange to me how our past experiences can become mirrors of sort, reflecting parts of ourselves we didn’t expect to find. I haven’t played Among Us since the covid lockdowns. But here I am, trying to write about something real, something raw, and the only thing my brain keeps circling back to a game about little spacemen doing tasks and calling each other sus.
Sometimes I feel like I’m playing the world’s longest game of Among Us. Except I’m both the impostor and the crew member. Every morning, I wake up ready to complete my tasks, and move through the spaceship of daily life with confidence. But there’s always that voice in the back of my head, watching, questioning, wondering if I’m just faking my way through everything. Even in my most private moments - writing in my journal, sitting alone with my thoughts, away from prying eyes and judgement of people - I can’t escape the feeling of being observed. Watched. As if someone, somewhere, is going to review the footage of my life and declare “Ah-ha! I knew they were faking it! You’re the imposter!”
The word “imposter” is funny that way - how it can echo in your head long after the accusation, how it can make you question every genuine moment of love and humanity you’ve ever had. When did we learn to doubt ourselves so thoroughly? When did authenticity become something we had to prove rather than simply live? The word itself comes from the French “imposteur,” and from the Latin “impostor” - literally “a deceiver.” But what fascinates me is the root: “imponere” - to impose upon, to place upon. As if the deception isn’t just about fooling others, but about placing something false on top of something real. Layer by layer, task by task, we impose these expectations upon ourselves until we can’t remember what lies beneath.
There’s a special kind of exhaustion that comes from constantly performing normalcy, from following the blueprints of what a “normal” person should do, should be.
[EMERGENCY MEETING CALLED]
Me: “There’s something off about these journal entries.”
Also Me: “They’re perfectly normal. Look at the handwriting, the daily reflections-“
Me: “Too perfect. Like someone studied how humans process emotion.”
Also Me: “I AM human. I can prove it - look at all these vulnerable moments I’ve documented-“
Me: “But who were you documenting them for? I did medbay so I’m clear.”
Also Me: “Ok stfu, I’m voting you.”
The meetings never end. They can’t. But maybe I’ve been playing this wrong the whole time. My strategy in Among Us was always clear: speedrun tasks, keep my head down, survive. Never stop for chat, never buddy up, just complete the mission. The irony? This efficient, lone-wolf approach made me look more sus than any impostor. By trying so hard to prove myself through productivity, I only raised more suspicion.
It’s the same pattern everywhere - these endless emergency meetings with myself, this constant self-surveillance. Even my attempts to understand myself become another layer of imposition. Write in journal: task complete. Question authenticity: task complete. Call emergency meeting to discuss feelings of disconnection: task complete. The very tools I use to dig beneath the surface become new surfaces to maintain.
What am I speedrunning from? Connection, maybe. Or the possibility that beneath all these layers - beneath the tasks and the meetings and the performances - there might be nothing at all. No original version to return to, no authentic self waiting to be uncovered. Just an endless game of impostor and crew, each role as real as the other. Each emergency meeting a desperate attempt to find something solid in the void.
Maybe that’s why we keep playing, keep layering, keep running through our tasks. Not because we’re hiding something real, but because the game itself - this constant dance between who we are and who we’re pretending to be - is all we’ve ever known. Every new layer becomes another truth, every performance another piece of who we are.
The tasks will never be complete. The meetings will never end. But perhaps they were never meant to.