[This is a guest post by T T Sreekumar]

On 25 January 2025, major newspapers in Kerala carried an advertorial on their front pages, styled as an imagined news feature from the year 2050. While a corner warning noted it was not actual news but a creative feature tied to a seminar by a deemed to be university, the format closely mimicked a genuine front-page report. The headline announced the ban of currency notes and a complete shift to digital currency starting February 1st, complete with fabricated names for officials such as the Reserve Bank Governor and opposition leaders. Despite slightly altered typography, the resemblance to legitimate news was convincing enough that many readers overlooked the disclaimer and were deeply alarmed.

Panic ensued, as people scrambled to verify the information, contacting friends and relatives who themselves became anxious. After widespread realization that it was merely an advertorial, social media erupted in criticism of the newspapers for creating confusion and fear. Some newspapers, responding to public outrage, issued apologies and clarified that the feature was a fictional advertisement.

While the newspapers are rightly held accountable, few pause for introspection to consider why a fictional narrative resonated as truth for a significant portion of Malayalees. This moment invites a deeper reflection on the collective psyche, where the boundaries between the plausible and the fabricated blur, revealing an unsettling readiness to accept the imagined as real.

This event underscores a troubling facet of human psychology—how collective memory, shaped by past trauma, can amplify gullibility. The unexpected demonetization in India, with its severe economic and psychological toll, has left the public sensitive to news about currency. The idea of a complete shift to digital currency aligns with a plausible future scenario, making it easier for people to suspend disbelief. The blurred line between reality and fiction, as Donna Haraway posited, reflects an “optical illusion” of distinction between science fiction and social reality.

The main headline proclaimed, “Goodbye to Currency Notes, Only Digital Currency from Now On,” capturing most of the attention. However, the accompanying “news” pieces were equally absurd, featuring stories like Earth and Mars winning an interplanetary competition and a robot being appointed as a minister. Despite the outlandish nature of the other reports, it was the main headline that managed to carry people away. Having endured the trauma of demonetization and its necropolitical aftermath, any news—whether real or fictitious—about currency notes can evoke deeply tensioned and anxious reactions from the public.

From a pragmatic standpoint, this experiment highlights the evolving challenges faced by the media industry. While creative advertising can be an innovative tool for engagement, adopting a format that closely resembles real news carries inherent risks. In an environment where print media is struggling to sustain itself amidst digital competition, such tactics may emerge as bold attempts to capture attention. However, the misjudgement in assessing the potential consequences of this approach underscores the complexities of balancing creativity with audience perception. In this instance, the risk assessment appears to have faltered, leading to unintended confusion and raising questions about the strategies employed to navigate the changing media landscape

This incident also speaks to the posthuman condition of human gullibility where technological possibilities reconfigure societal expectations. In a world increasingly mediated by artificial intelligence, the plausible can seamlessly intersect with the fictional. The belief in a digital currency-only future reflects a collective unconscious shaped by rapid advancements in AI, automation, and digital economics. It reveals how people are primed to accept certain fictions as truths because they resonate with broader technological trends.

As we move deeper into a posthuman world, led by AI, the capacity to distinguish between fiction and reality may diminish further. The tools of narrative manipulation—whether for advertising or other purposes—gain greater power when combined with AI’s ability to generate hyper-realistic scenarios. This incident invites reflection on the interplay between fiction and reality, where the boundaries blur in ways that reveal deeper tensions in the symbolic order. As Žižek suggests, the Real—resistant to full symbolization—often disrupts the coherence of the Symbolic, manifesting in moments of shock or contradiction. In the case of the advertorial, the imaginative scenario of a currency-less future acted as a provocation that resonated deeply with collective anxieties rooted in past experiences like demonetization.

The Real, in this instance, irrupted into the Symbolic framework of media consumption. The confusion and panic it triggered exposed the fragility of trust in media as an institution, highlighting the symbolic order’s reliance on its exclusions—those gaps and unspoken tensions that sustain its coherence. This interaction between the Real and the Symbolic drives not only individual reactions but broader social dynamics, forcing audiences to confront the unacknowledged fears and possibilities underlying technological and economic shifts. Rather than prescribing solutions, this moment calls for an acknowledgment of the complexities inherent in the tension between fiction and reality, between the Symbolic and the Real, reflecting a landscape where meaning, conflict, and transformation continually unfold, challenging us to navigate a terrain of profound uncertainty and change.

This incident underscores the profound vulnerabilities engendered by digitality and digital capitalism, particularly in societies with a history of negotiating traumatic economic events like demonetization. The rapid shift toward digital economies, while offering convenience and innovation, often exacerbates public anxiety, as the masses grapple with the uncertainty of technological disruptions. In the aftermath of demonetization, where physical currency was rendered obsolete overnight, the collective psyche remains imprinted with fear of abrupt, sweeping changes. Digital capitalism thrives on speed, opacity, and the promise of a future that is often incomprehensible to those left navigating its immediate consequences. The Kerala advertorial episode highlights how this uncertainty, combined with the overwhelming dominance of digital narratives, renders people susceptible to panic, amplifying the disconnect between technological advancements and societal preparedness. As the boundaries between fiction and reality blur, the need to critically engage with these transformations becomes more urgent than ever, lest the digital future becomes a source of continual anxiety rather than resilience.