By Steve Baxi — Every app on our phone, every social media post, every choice we make about who we are and what we’ll do is influenced by technology. Occasionally we resist, most of the time we don’t. What makes this a nice place to sit? Is it because there’s an outlet to charge your phone? Why is your living room oriented around optimal TV access? Does anyone really need to be live streaming at a party? Why does the world need to know you had board game night last Saturday? In a cruel twist of fate, it’s easy to accept we need to change our mindset about technological use, but rarely do we consider how technology defines our mindset in the first place.

Mindset #1 is due out June 29, a new Vault Comics series by Zack Kaplan, John Pearson, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, and it treats these questions with the exact kind of science fiction horror they deserve. Ben Sharp lives the wretched life of a Silicon Valley Tech Billionaire. Or least he thinks he wants to as he tries to graduate Stanford by designing a self-help app.

Not only is this a timely, must read new series, it’s also masterfully executed in every respect. Kaplan weaves a tragic, relatable story about a character who wants something, generally speaking, very reasonable in our social media driven culture, and treats it with the kind of hollow, existential dread and hypocrisy it deserves. John Pearson’s art is populated by silhouetted figures, dark corners and a masterful use of space to create a crowded, claustrophobic environment. Otsmane-Elhaou’s letters leave tails that slither and snake through the page, entrapping people by their own thoughts. The contrast between Ben’s musings and the presentation of the dialogue enhances the contradictions this story is aiming to expose.

Tech billionaires (especially aspiring ones) are driven by a solutionist ideology. In other words, they want to re-interpret normal aspects of life as problems, and then create a technology orientated solution. Why spend time vacuuming when you can buy a rumba? Yes, the rumba requires you to shift your home to be more accommodating to its sense of direction but now you don’t have to vacuum! Vacuuming was never a problem, but now it feels like one, and the answer is to find a tech based solution, even if it means changing how you live your life. This creates a vicious cycle, as tech tries to solve a “problem,” and creates a new one that requires yet another tech solution.

Ben Sharp is introduced to us by proposing exactly this. Social media, data mining, A.I. are all problems. So what if we had an app to stop us from using apps? His intentions seem good but even the cold hearted tech investors see the problem of creating an influence based app to combat app driven influences. The more we learn of Ben’s life, the more we see how quickly social media appearances and tech devices run our lives, run our desires. Everything we do, we do to appease some image we find online rather than what might be in front of us.

Otsmane-Elhaou’s lettering here is key, as we see each text box for Ben’s thoughts, as well as anything aimed at his sense of self as swarming, bold, surrounding him and perpetually  in your face. The loosely woven together ideas of his thoughts are presented as a concrete flow that boxes him in. He’s trapped by inside-the-box thinking marketed as free and unique. Other characters tend to have hollow text boxes, the words are there but don’t feel anchored in anything. As if the very fabric of social relationships is harder to see when it's not framed by a rectangular blue glow. 

John Pearson’s art focuses on the hollowness of the outside world. Dark, ill defined people flood the campus but Ben is isolated. We only see people as shadows, vague figures posing for selfies and streaming content. The study of the tech billionaire culture here is given an appropriate sense of horror. It’s a world where everyone speaks of glamor and fame, but they look decrepit and colorless. It's as if everyone here would be fine living in Silent Hill as long as they have access to wi-fi and a circle light.

Mindset #1 paints a bleak picture, and sets its examination up with complicated questions worth pursuing in more detail. Kaplan’s perspective on contemporary culture is unforgiving but not without compassion. It's not that people are bad for turning everything into a selfie moment. It's that there’s something sad, broken, and unhappy about a world and a person who only feels joy through the images of their life, and not life itself. It's fitting that this is so on the nose, because regardless of how many ways it's said, breaking the control of a social media defined society is not easy. We have the makings of a profound tragedy here, as the first issue leaves us terrified of what Ben Sharp might do with his technological ideology.

Overall: Mindset #1 is an uncompromising and engaging vision. A terrifying look in the dark mirror we all need. 10/10. 

Review: Mindset #1

Mindset #1
Writer: Zack Kaplan
Artist: John J. Pearson
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Publisher: Vault Comics
Price: $4.99
When an introverted tech geek from Stanford, with dreams of changing the world, accidentally discovers a form of mind control, he and his friends do something unexpected – they put the science into a meditation app to help users break their addiction to other manipulative technologies and platforms. But after their rags-to-riches rise, a wake of murders and a series of mind games, their Mindset app replaces all rival social media and achieves a cult following of a billion users, and they must ask the question – are they helping people or controlling them?
Publication Date: June 29, 2022

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Steve Baxi has a Masters in Ethics and Applied Philosophy, with focuses in 20th Century Aesthetics and Politics. Steve creates video essays and operates a subscription based blog where he writes on pop culture through a philosophy lens. He tweets through @SteveSBaxi.