Storytelling That Connects, Not Divides
I was just reading a WIRED article about how the narrative around the tragic murder of a Minnesota politician is being manipulated. It got me thinking about how often narrative is used like a psy-op to influence and alter the public’s perception of events in ways that harm society. But if that’s true, isn’t the opposite also a possibility?
Growing up as a kid obsessed with science fiction and fantasy, I learned: stories don't just entertain us - they literally rewire how we see the world. Can the same scribblers’ tools that build walls between people also build bridges to connect them?
Personal Stories Hit Different
We don't connect with statistics or categories. We connect with people. Real people with messy, complicated lives just like ours.
Take StoryCorps - those simple conversations between family members, friends, strangers. No special effects, no big budget production. Just humans talking about love, loss, fear, hope. And somehow, those intimate moments shift how millions of people see each other.
Personal stories crack open stereotypes and make abstract issues suddenly, urgently human.
Marshall Ganz figured out something brilliant with his "Public Narrative" approach. It's like a recipe for moving people from "meh, whatever" to "holy shit, we need to do something about this."
Story of Self: Why do you personally care about this?
Story of Us: What values do we share as a community?
Story of Now: What happens if we don't act right now?
It's simple but crazily effective at turning isolation into collective action.
Pop Culture: Stealth Empathy Machine
Those of us working in entertainment. TV shows, movies, games - are not just making content, we're shaping culture. Every character choice, every storyline, every world we build either reinforces old biases or challenges them.
Look at what "Will & Grace" did for LGBTQ+ acceptance. Or how Jordan Peele used horror genre conventions in "Get Out" to expose the everyday terror of racism. These weren't preachy after-school specials - they were entertaining stories that happened to shift how millions of people thought about their neighbors.
History gets told by the winners, right? But what happens when we start telling those same stories from different perspectives? When we include voices that got edited out of the official version?
Projects like The 1619 Project don't just add footnotes to American history - they completely reframe it. And yeah, that makes some people uncomfortable. Good stories often do.
You can't just tell people what not to believe. They need something better to believe in.
Organizations like Life After Hate don't just condemn extremism - they share transformation stories. Former white supremacists talking about their journey out of hate. These aren't theoretical arguments about why racism is bad. They're proof that people can change, that redemption is possible.
Whether you're writing for TV, making games, posting on social media, or just talking to your kids about current events, you're telling stories that shape how people see the world. Like Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
