Reg: “[Ahem] Earth to Sydney.”
Syd: “[…] ummmwha … You say something, Reg?”
Reg: “Who, me? I’m just sitting here trying to decide whether I’m amazed, amused, or annoyed about watching the major domo of several high-profile multinational corporations bow over his phone like a high school student, oblivious to the outside world.”
Syd: “Sorry, Reg. But these TikTok videos, stupid and amateurish as most of them are, are somehow so compelling.”
Reg: “Of course they are. They know how to grab and hold viewers. Otherwise we wouldn’t have invested in their company.”
Syd: “But have you seen any of them?”
Reg: “Sydney! We know the tricks! There is no excuse for either of us falling victim to them!”
Syd: “Not even for doing due diligence on our investments?”
Reg: “We hire sales, marketing, and legal teams to do that. If we can’t trust them, why are they on our payrolls? [Sigh] So what’s caught your attention?”
Syd: “… umm …”
Reg: “That memorable, huh? You can’t even remember the last one of the however many you’ve been wasting your time on in the last half hour, ignoring me? Sounds to me like you’ve done your due diligence and then some.”
Syd: “Touché, Reg. But at least it only takes seconds to find and replay the last one … so, here.”
Reg: “A fifteen-second video of a man calling his wife out as a nag?!? Sydney, that trope was old and hoary when our grandfathers were in the mail rooms of our companies! Are you telling me that it’s still current? And getting approval?”
Syd: “It does, as the saying goes, seem to have gone viral.”
Reg: “Then I owe you an apology. Your, ah, obsession seems to have a commercial purpose after all.”
Syd: “‘Don’t watch what they say, watch what they do?'”
Reg: “Precisely. So we can expect all this woke stuff to dry up and blow away, just as it did when the wise of our own generation discovered money and put their flower-child phase behind them. The evidence is on your phone. And your mask.”
Syd: “What mask?”
Reg: “Precisely.”
