Greetings,
I am writing to you on behalf of Paramount Pictures, a division of Paramount Global. We would like to inform you that for the past eight months, we have been covertly filming you for what would have been a television sequel to the critically-acclaimed 1998 film The Truman Show. You were randomly selected from a cross-selection of the American public because we had ambitions to create genre-changing, boundary-pushing reality TV focusing on real people, with real problems. The proposed series would have allowed us to embed deep within the American psyche and see what makes it tick.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that you live such a boring life, we have had to cancel the project, which had a budget of $200 million and had cast Keri Russell as your girlfriend, a fact that you didn't notice as you “haven’t had a TV since they stopped carrying The Weather Channel.”
Over the past several months, we placed cameras inside alcoves of your home, a mid-priced bungalow just outside of Rochester, New York, inside of the ficus at your office, where you work as a wastewater accounts management supervisor, and directly ten feet behind you when you attended a Pentatonix concert. Our camerapeople claimed they were making a Last Waltz-style documentary about the band Pentatonix, and you inexplicably believed this.
Ordinarily, this letter would be a standard release form apologizing for our deception, and requesting your approval for the footage to be released. Instead, it is encouragement for you to do something with your life.
Please don’t misunderstand us. We are not calling you a loser. It’s just we couldn’t envision a world where any facet of your life would be interesting to the televisual public. The most joy you ever showed was chuckling politely at a New Yorker cartoon whose caption was “Don’t shoot me, I’m just the pigeon.” It’s a five-out-of-ten New Yorker cartoon, at best.
We are currently in the midst of a writers’ strike. We are desperate for unscripted content. Yet, the most surprising thing we uncovered during the last eight months of filming was that you still use the phrase, “chillin’ like a villain.” We saw no way to move forward with the project, and our hidden camerapeople were beginning to experience a profound depression and unrelenting ennui.
Whatever reality TV obstacle we put in your way, you surmounted it with a boring ease that was, to be frank, ratings poison. Bus accident that caused you to be an hour late for work? You said, “Aw beans,” and then read The American Guide to Wood Grain throughout the entire delay. Commotion at the package center where you were picking up your monthly copy of The American Guide to Wood Grain? You spent the time watching the package center paint dry, purely for pleasure. Lacing your weekly pilsner with a concentrated dose of speed? You took a nap. Keri Russell was amazed.
You are perfectly nice, grounded, and utterly useless to the televisual ecosystem. We wish you all the best with your plans for the future, which seem to consist of fancasting a reboot of 60 Minutes. Please never contact us again.
Best,
Paramount Pictures