The Halo Effect
By Mike
Brittany-with-a-Y was mid-selfie when the universe decided to accessorize her skull. She wore neon and hummed like a refrigerator full of dreams.
The halo materialized during golden hour—that Instagram-sacred time when reality briefly forgives its own imperfections. One moment she posed against exposed brick (because of course), the next a luminous ring crowned her platinum extensions, humming Gregorian chant in the key of narcissism and smelling faintly of vanilla ego with undertones of ozone ambition.
Not your grandmother's Sunday school halo, mind you, but a Vegas-worthy coronet that pulsed with the sexual energy of a thousand double-taps and the spiritual authority of a kombucha cleanse. This celestial accessory refused removal like stubborn lovers or student debt, clinging to craniums with the determination of destiny itself—and the magnetic field of a small appliance.
Within hours, similar halos crowned Instagram models from Malibu to Miami. The world responded with its customary blend of worship and weaponization.
Airlines manufactured separate boarding lines for the "Glorious Ones." The IRS—the most evil American bureaucracy—suddenly discovered religion and gave tax credits to the radiant few. Corporate America prostrated itself before these walking nightlights, showering them with endorsements, dinner reservations, and access to an exclusive app called "Ethereal" (which, rumor whispered, could predict your next orgasm based on your engagement rates and astrological compatibility with luxury brands).
Nobody questioned the cosmic mechanics. Beautiful people deserved beautiful treatment. The halos merely provided scientific validation for what society already believed: that gorgeousness equals goodness, that symmetrical features guarantee spiritual superiority, and that cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass also slice through moral ambiguity.
Enter Mike, stage left, wearing yesterday's coffee stains like badges of authentic living.
Mike inhabited that demographic valley between "ruggedly handsome" and "owns more books than houseplants"—unfiltered humanity in its elemental, raw, gloriously unretouched state. His left eyebrow twitched when he concentrated, a neurological tell that had sabotaged every poker game and job interview since adolescence. He wielded a reporter's notebook like a priest clutches his rosary, hunting truth through the urban jungle of the Bay Area Beacon, a scrappy digital publication famous for exposing kombucha fraudsters and artisanal dog food conspiracies.
Almost immediately, Mike noticed something the beautiful people missed: their halos flickered during falsehoods like a string of last year's short-circuited Christmas lights.
This observation earned him a cruise ship ejection courtesy of Tifffa-Neee (spelled with three F's and E's because two weren't sufficiently extra). She maintained her influencer smile even while signaling security, her halo pulsing brighter as she lied about her hatred of Mike’s face that never saw a peel or makeup.
The incident occurred during a brunch that cost more than most people's annual therapy budget—and was much less therapeutic. Undeterred as a raccoon with boundary issues, Mike excavated truth like an archaeologist.
The halos were amplifiers for collective belief, broadcasting their wearers' self-perception into the world's emotional Wi-Fi. Think yourself intelligent? The world suddenly agrees and offers you tenure.
Consider yourself morally superior? Congratulations, you've achieved sainthood without the inconvenience of actual virtue or charitable tax deductions.
The devices didn't reward perfection—they manufactured its illusion, transforming wearers into walking Rorschach tests reflecting humanity's deepest biases and shallowest desires.
Behind this metaphysical marketing campaign lurked CherubTech, headquartered in a windowless Silicon Valley building that hummed with the frequency of suppressed guilt. Their mission statement read: "Why let merit interfere with influence?" CEO Nathaniel Glow (birth name: Nathan Glowinski) had weaponized psychology's favorite cognitive bias using a cocktail of alien biotech, Vatican-banned research, and an algorithm christened SassyKaren™—which learned human preferences by analyzing crying selfies and rage-commenting patterns.
The conspiracy had elegant simplicity: exploit humanity's tendency to conflate beauty with virtue, then monetize the resulting worship. Democracy by cheekbone structure. Meritocracy through melanin distribution. Capitalism retrofitted with celestial lighting. Even the Founding Fathers would have wept—though mostly from envy at not thinking of it first.
But every spell has a breaking point. The halos contained a kill switch accessible only to Earth's most beautiful person, determined through a global AI beauty contest hosted on TikTok—because of course it was. Someone had to convince this ultimate influencer to willingly destroy the source of their power, like asking a vampire to install blackout curtains.
Mike assembled his fellowship of the aesthetically challenged: a one-eyed corgi named Fitzgerald who growled at smartphones, a makeup artist banned from Sephora for suggesting that inner beauty couldn't be contoured, and various other misfits who'd never photographed well but had good souls.
Together, they embarked on a quest to break the world's most seductive enchantment.
The moment arrived on a Tuesday (because Tuesdays remain the universe's favorite day for irony). As the ultimate influencer finally pressed the metaphysical delete button, the halos died with a sound like champagne flutes shattering in reverse—a crystalline implosion of artificial divinity returning to silicon dust.
The world blinked, suddenly seeing itself without Instagram filters for the first time in years. It wasn't pretty. But it was real.
Because sometimes the ugliest truth liberates us from the prettiest lies. And sometimes, just sometimes, the unfiltered face in the mirror belongs to the only person brave enough to smash it.
The revolution would not be Instagrammed.