I was aimlessly scrolling on TikTok the other day and came across a video that reminded me just how “locked in” my algorithm truly is…

The video was of a student at John Hopkins University filming his nightly walk from a classroom to his college dorm with the caption “thinking of inventing Facebook…” as Trent Reznor’s Hand Covers Bruise piano score poured through my phone speakers. For those of you who don’t know, Hand Covers Bruise is the first track off the award winning movie score The Social Network, a film that follows Mark Zuckerberg (portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg) on his journey through creating Facebook as well as his many court meetings that followed shortly after. Zuckerberg famously attended Harvard during his creation of Facebook, however Harvard had strict filming restrictions so the movie was mostly captured at John Hopkins University’s Homewood campus. There is a scene during the beginning of the film capturing Zuckerberg walking alone on campus after being broken up with, a catalyst that led him to invent an algorithm that would be the future foundation of Facebook. During this scene, the eerie yet calming piano of Hand Covers Bruise is first heard.

The video posted by the college student went viral, but my attention wasn’t captured by the shaky iPhone video or the ambience of such a familiar college campus.

My attention was directed towards the comments and the shared connection everyone had with each other.

There was well over 10k comments of individuals relating to walking on their respective college campuses since the release of the film in 2010, brooding throughout the dark night with their headphones on blasting Hand Covers Bruise as they themselves felt a sense of young adulthoold creeping in on their walk of bliss before having to retreat to a dorm room no bigger than a kitchen pantry where their homework or term paper awaits. Consumed with nostalgia, I began to think back to 2016; footsteps echoing on my walking route home from my night class at Belmont University where I believed I was unique and misunderstood as the campus lights did little to light my way home. Unbeknowst to me at the time, The Social Network since its release had inspired tens of thousands of other students to recreate this same exact experience for themselves as well.

Now, if that’s not something that’ll stop a doom scroll, I’m not sure what will.

As a songwriter, I’ve been in many rooms with writers who don’t really know where to begin (me included). Usually, the writer’s block manifests itself in a melody that doesn’t inspire or a groove that doesn’t quite catch. One thing that has always stuck out is this: very rarely has anyone been at a loss with what they’ve been experiencing emotionally. To this day, I have yet to be in a writers room where a writer goes “Hmm, I don’t relate to that feeling at all” or “I just don’t know how I feel about this”.

I feel while every experience is truly unique in its own right, each individual experience is probably more common than we’d like to accept. I personally believe this can be received one of two ways, the first of which is feeling unoriginal (in a negative context) which usually leads to not feeling special (man, did I really want to be special in my college years).

The second of which is to rejoice in the fact that we are all more similar than we are unique. This is why there are over a million-billion love songs and somehow we don’t seem to get tired of them when they’re worded and delivered in a different way.

We all find ourselves engaging in various forms of art yet for art to truly connect there may need to be a common ground of understanding through experience.

I can assume the only reason you’re still reading this is because you’re resonating with this idea or have experienced something similar, otherwise you would have shied away paragraphs ago (I’m a bit long winded today).

Cheers.