Thread 4: Resonance is the fit, not the feeling
"Resonance" has become a broad catchall for an experience that felt like it meant something. Tears, chills, or a quieter confirming hit get treated as proof the experience went deep. Those are real, but they're also symptoms of a broader habit of treating the feeling as the product.
We know how to manufacture intensity without touching anyone's actual life. Peak design, music swells, a well timed reveal, lighting cues, a story beat that reliably creates gasp on cue... these are real crafts. They can make a room weep on schedule, and leave a person unchanged tomorrow. To be clear, emotion does belong in lasting work, but designing as if emotional intensity were the goal is how the field keeps optimizing the wrong layer and calling it "meaning."
I use resonance more in the physics sense. Two things tuned alike, and one moves when the other sounds.
