Strategic escapism: how to defend yourself against brands’ fictional worlds

You sit there. Screen glow on your face. Scrolling. Always scrolling. Images wash over you—medieval knights selling raincoats, giant handbags racing through streets, perfumes that promise entire universes inside glass bottles. You think you’re consuming content. Wrong. Content is consuming you. This is strategic escapism. The latest evolution in marketing warfare. A psychological operation so sophisticated that detecting the manipulation feels like paranoia. But it’s not paranoia when they’re actually hunting you. Not with guns. With dreams. With promises. With carefully constructed realities that feel better than your own. Your brain, flooded with dopamine, doesn’t register the transaction: your attention in exchange for their control. The algorithm doesn’t just know what you like—it’s teaching you what to like. What to want. What to become. This isn’t entertainment. It’s recruitment. Into what? Into branded realities where your identity is outsourced to corporate strategists. Where your desires are no longer your own. Where escape itself becomes the prison.

Here they come. The new marketing wizards. Sharper tools. More insidious techniques.
Escapism has two faces. One saves you. The other enslaves you. On one side: constructive escapism. Yours. Voluntary. Conscious. You control it. You decide when to enter. When to exit. On the other: induced avoidance. They force it on you. Drown you in it. While you remain blind to the chains binding you.

Wake up.
Now.

The system has changed. Brands no longer pretend to be your friends. Strategy obsolete. Now they build parallel universes. Want you living inside them.
The market suffocates with fake authenticity. “Paparazzi campaigns” with celebrities in studied poses? Primitive traps. Balenciaga. Bottega Veneta. Moschino. All complicit in your manipulation.
But you’re not stupid. You’ve developed antibodies. Forced them to change tactics.

New era. No more counterfeit truth. Now pure fantasy.

In a world of constant surveillance and programmed instability, your reality becomes unbearable. They exploit this. Offer you an escape. But it’s a door that locks behind you. Look at Burberry. No longer selling raincoats. Selling knights in armor. Eleven million dollars in media value. Real money. Imaginary product. Jacquemus. Giant handbags racing down streets. Cucumbers and robots. Three hundred thousand Instagram likes. For what? For nothing. For smoke.

Learn to recognize the signals

“Romantasy” literature isn’t a spontaneous phenomenon. Another portal to oblivion. “A Court of Thorns and Roses”: 8.9 billion views. “Fourth Wing”: 18 weeks on bestseller lists. Coincidences? Coincidences don’t exist.

On Pinterest they search for “chainmail necklaces.” On TikTok they go crazy for “medieval aesthetics.” Who triggered this obsession? Who profits? Follow the money. Always. Brands change skin. Mutate. Evolve. No longer your peers. Now your creators. Saint Laurent produces films. Collaborates with Almodóvar. With Cronenberg. No longer advertisers. World architects. Miu Miu finances auteur short films. Twenty-nine episodes. World-renowned female directors. Not patronage. Cultural colonization.
Resistance means understanding. Understanding means seeing beyond.

Finery. AI-generated campaigns. First year: 2.2 million interactions. Thirty-two million impressions. No human behind. Just algorithms talking to algorithms. Perfumehead and its “Osmocosm.” Doesn’t sell perfumes. Sells prepackaged identities. “Weaves narratives so deep you desire the fragrance before smelling it.” Translation: manipulates you before you can defend yourself.

The crucial difference: constructive escapism is controlled by you. Induced avoidance controls you.
When you decide when to enter and exit fantasy, you’re free. When the brand decides, you’re property.
How to defend yourself? Conscious consumption. Always.

Every time a brand offers an alternative world, ask: “Who benefits from this fantasy?”
Every time you feel transported, ask yourself: “Who’s driving?”
Every time you desire a product you haven’t touched, ask: “Who planted this desire?”
The active consumer doesn’t submit. Chooses. Analyzes. Dismantles.
You don’t have to reject everything. You have to understand everything.
Use their own weapon: strategic awareness.
When the brand says “enter our world,” you respond: “Under what conditions?”
When marketing whispers “escape reality,” you ask: “To go where?”
When advertising begs “let’s dream together,” you question: “Who wakes up richer?”
This is power. This is control. This is freedom.
Next time a brand offers you a portal to another world, don’t automatically refuse. Evaluate. Negotiate. Impose your conditions.
Not everyone will understand. Not everyone will awaken.
But you? You’ll own your dreams. Not rent theirs.