Of all the Jim Carrey movies we wish we lived in, The Truman Show probably isn’t the one we’d pick. Becoming The Mask or battling Sonic the Hedgehog? What a hoot that’d be. Sadly, the most likely entry in Carrey’s filmography to become a reality is the aforementioned acclaimed 1999 drama, in which the titular Truman discovers his whole life is a TV show.
The Truman Show has inspired various mind-bending online conspiracy theories over the decades since, and it’s good to know these are still alive and well in the TikTok era. User @mitchellbienvenue went viral on the app for pointing out something weird about his flight that most of us have probably encountered ourselves… And now he’s got us all questioning whether reality really is reality. As Keanu Reeves’ Neo might say: whoa!
While taking a video of all the people waiting to go on the same plane as him, Mitchell wrote “You’re telling me *all* these people are going to Birmingham, Alabama from Columbus, OH on a random Wednesday at 12: 15???” Although Mitchell didn’t make this conclusion himself, everyone in the comments agreed what’s really going on here: all these people are extras in the TV show that is the real world.
I hope Mitchell is happy because he’s now made everyone on TikTok question the veracity of their entire existence. “This is me when I have a Wednesday off and go to the grocery store and wonder why all these other ppl are also at the store,” one wrote. Another is about to go all Charlie Day about the constant busyness of airports: “And every flight is full…to everywhere..anytime.” As one comment summed up: “Makes me feel like I’m on the Truman show.”
If you’re hoping for a professional opinion that can explain this then you’re out of luck. “Flight attendant here I ask the same question all the time,” someone wrote. And if the wannabe Neos out there are looking for further proof that we’re living in a simulation, another commenter has an idea: “Here’s a game. Think of the most random place that u would never go and see if its crowded. that’s how i know we in the Matrix lmao.”
Not to feed the fear even more, but the Simulation Hypothesis — that posits that our universe genuinely isn’t a “base reality” but a holographic one — is a genuine scientific debate that splits the community. Elon Musk is famously a proponent of it, but don’t let that put you off because many other less annoying scientists are as well. Some quantum mechanics, for example, wonder if the unpredictable behavior of subatomic particles are just glitches in the system.
So, next time you’re at the airport, maybe just check that the other passengers on your flight aren’t NPCs or non-speaking supporting actors. Oh, and in case I don’t see you later, good afternoon, good evening and good night.
