The Hijacking of the Room

Author: Andrew Davis

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Last night, in a casual Spaces on X, a woman dropped a bombshell: a plane had been hijacked. Nobody in the room was connected to the story. Nobody could verify it. It had nothing to do with anyone present.

The tone of the entire conversation shifted instantly. What had been easy banter between Americans and Canadians turned into an argument about whether people should care. One side insisted you must feel something. The other side — and this is the part worth sitting with — was really saying: why are you telling me this? Ten thousand things are going wrong in the world right now. Why this one?

Ten minutes later, she walked it back. It was a misunderstanding.

That's the whole story, and it's a perfect example of something bigger. Social media has turned every room into a potential broadcast channel, and anyone can seize the mic. The hijacker doesn't need to be right — they just need to be first. The correction, when it comes, arrives quietly, ten minutes later, to a room that's already moved on.

Some people in that space were perfectly fine with it. They're attuned to news networks and sensationalism — something bad is happening, we need to feel bad, everything changes now. That's not empathy. That's conditioning.

The real hijacking wasn't the plane. It was the room. 📻