Welcome to Macrodata Refinement

Like. Oh yeah. I recognize this one. Someone else dresses you. Someone else feeds you. Someone else, who's just like you, but they get everything. The little toys and the waffle party. Helly is desperate and suicidal, but she still has to go to school work. You have to do work that doesn't make sense, but you'll understand eventually. The meaningless, manufactured rivalry between departments. The rumors??? “they have larvae that eat them?” “I’m livestock grown for food” “I’m a bodybuilder who has loads of girlfriends, but you don’t know them they go to a different school?” Punishment in the form of apologizing over and over, having to use all the right words, until you are believed. Endless hallways. Scary authority figures. "Are you mad at me?" Religion being the only type of media you see, until you read some shitty book that changes your life. Confusing, sudden camping trips that are supposed to fix you. Condescension. The words "innie" and "outie" are brought up multiple times as infantilizing. Of course his innie's voice is higher pitched????

Yeah. Reminds me a lot of a kid's Hypothetical Adult Self.

Your future self will understand. Your future self will thank me. Your future self will want you to have done this. This is for your (future self's) own good.

The appeal of severance, at least as we've been shown it so far, is that subjects can have unpleasant experiences (childbirth, a tedious workday, a dental exam) already having happened, to skip directly to the "afterward" and have the unpleasant experience actually experienced by another, lesser version of yourself. Right?

Which is also how a lot of adults feel about children -- either their own retrospective child selves, or the children currently in their lives (whose lives must be structured to best serve their future adult selves). The purpose of childhood is to get unpleasant experiences over with so that the Future Adult Self (the self-that-matters) can have them already over with.

It's so telling that the boss at the door factory who interviews Dylan compares severance to circumcision -- a surgery commonly performed on infants, without medical necessity, based purely on the justification "They'll want/need it done as adults." Now, that's not necessarily true (the world is fully of happily uncircumcised adults), but even if if were, it would raise the inevitable question "Then why not wait until they want/need it as adults?" and the answer is "Because surgery is unpleasant and we assume adults don't want to go through it. The Future Adult Self (the self-that-matters) will want this surgery to already have happened, to have been experienced by the Lesser (childhood) Self."

Adam Scott recreates the iconic “Do you think a depressed person could make this?” meme from Parks and Recreation with a Mark S(cout) figurine from Severance | August 16, 2025

Severance + "Wait For Me II" from Hadestown

SEVERED DAYS 🔢💧

Severance x Gorillaz

Original and individuals

Concept to final product

Adam Scott recreates the iconic “Do you think a depressed person could make this?” meme from Parks and Recreation with a Mark S(cout) figurine from Severance | August 16, 2025