The Conversion Machine
I noticed it for the first time when Charlie Kirk died.
I had never even heard of Charlie Kirk. Maybe I live under a rock. I read the news, I follow politics, I’m not disengaged from the world—but somehow this man did not exist in my universe until he was suddenly gone.
Then my phone lit up.
Someone I know—someone I have history with—started sending me links. They were devastated. They couldn’t believe someone would kill Charlie Kirk. What is the world coming to? Look at this man. Look at what he stood for.
The links painted him as a gentle, almost Hallmark-card version of a human being. Quotes like “Build a family. Leave a legacy.” Vague, wholesome, inspirational stuff. He seemed like a guy who could’ve been selling life insurance in a small town.
So I did what any reasonable person would do: I started looking him up.
Why the hell would anyone want this guy dead?
And that’s when the algorithm kicked in.
Because I was searching him, because I was reading the positive posts, because I was engaging with this version of Charlie Kirk, the internet decided: Ah. You like this.
Suddenly my feeds filled with glowing tributes. Clips of him being calm and thoughtful. Quotes about family and freedom. A digital shrine built just for me.
Then I talked to people in my actual life.
“Dig a little deeper,” they said.
So I did.
And there was the other Charlie Kirk.
The one who goes on campuses to provoke.
The one who targets trans people.
The one who stands in front of vulnerable kids and demands, What is a woman?
The one who says things designed not to persuade, but to humiliate. To get a reaction. To go viral.
That version of him wasn’t being served to me at first.
I had to go looking.
And suddenly it all made sense—not just Charlie Kirk, but something much bigger.
We all live inside algorithmic realities now. Not just “echo chambers,” but full-blown personalized worlds. Whatever you touch, whatever you pause on, whatever makes you feel something—the system feeds you more of it.
It doesn’t care if it’s true.
It cares if it sticks.
But here’s the thing that’s really been haunting me:
This isn’t just happening between us and our screens.
It’s happening between us and other people.
Since Charlie Kirk’s death, the person who first sent me those links has kept sending things. Conspiracy-tinged stuff. MAGA-adjacent stuff. They’ll tell you they’re not political. They don’t even vote.
But the content says otherwise.
It always circles back to the same worldview:
You’re being lied to.
I know the truth.
Let me show you.
And I see this everywhere now.
Friends dating Trump supporters.
Parents losing friends to the rabbit hole.
Relationships strained not just by different opinions—but by a constant pressure to convert.
That’s the key difference.
People on my side of things—liberals, progressives, whatever you want to call us—mostly say:
We disagree. Let’s not talk about it. You vote your way, I vote mine. Let’s have dinner.
But on the other side?
There’s a mission.
A friend of mine dated a MAGA woman. He said, “Let’s just not talk politics.” He genuinely tried. But she couldn’t stop. Every dinner became a debate. Every car ride turned into a lecture. She was convinced that if she just gave him enough links, enough podcasts, enough YouTube clips, he would wake up.
Eventually, he broke up with her.
My mom went through something similar with someone close to her. He believed he was slowly converting her. And when she finally said, plainly, “I’m not voting for him,” the relationship cooled.
They agreed not to talk politics—but something had shifted.
The project was over.
The investment was gone.
That’s what this is:
A project.
It’s not about coexistence.
It’s not about mutual respect.
It’s about recruitment.
It has the same structure as a cult. Or an MLM. Or a religion that thinks it’s the only one with the truth.
There is an us and a them.
There are people who see what’s really happening—and people who are sheep.
And if you’re a sheep, they don’t leave you alone.
They send you links.
They forward you videos.
They “just want you to consider” this or that.
They frame it as concern.
But it’s really evangelism.
What makes it so powerful now is that the algorithms back it up.
They’re being told, constantly, that they are right. That they are brave. That they are part of a hidden majority. That the mainstream is lying. That they have access to secret knowledge.
And if they could just get you to see what they see—
if they could just crack your reality—
everything would change.
It’s exhausting.
It’s invasive.
And honestly?
It’s scary.
Because this isn’t just about politics anymore.
It’s about whose version of reality gets to exist.
It’s about whose feed becomes whose mind.
I don’t need you to agree with me.
But I am so tired of being treated like I need to be saved.