The Privileged Dead — Full Script (Unfiltered Edition)
The one where privilege meets Halloween — and everyone’s wearing a mask.
“It’s Halloween.
People wear masks. Cute.
Most people I know wear them all year.
Less cute.”
🎙 INTRO — The Monsters Among Us
It’s Halloween.
People wear masks. Cute.
Most people I know wear them all year.
Less cute.
I’ve heard you.
Apparently, I speak too fast.
Poor things — you couldn’t keep up?
What a tragedy…
Some of you said, “He’s like a train.”
Yes.
That’s because I actually have somewhere to be.
But since I’m generous — and you’re… cognitively scenic —
I’ll try to slow down.
Don’t get too excited, though.
I’m slowing down for me, not for you.
You just happen to benefit from it.
Welcome back.
The same arrogance, just… slightly slower delivery.
You’re welcome.
You want scary? Relax.
And once again — this isn’t a sermon.
It’s customer service for reality.
No refunds.
I don’t hate privilege.
I hate cosplay.
The “self-made” millionaire with a family discount code.
Some people are born on level five.
The rest of us start at “tutorial” with the controller unplugged.
But sure — tell me to “work harder.”
You ever notice how the rich love resilience?
It’s their favourite sport.
They watch other people play it and call it inspiration.
They love saying, “We all have the same opportunities.”
Yeah — some just start the race halfway through.
On a horse.
Sponsored by daddy’s trust fund.
It’s not envy.
It’s pattern recognition.
If every winner looks the same,
maybe it’s not talent — maybe it’s template.
They love resilience because they’ve never needed it.
They frame struggle like it’s art,
while we live it like it’s rent.
Vampires are real.
They don’t avoid sunlight — they avoid accountability.
They sparkle on LinkedIn and call it authenticity.
And the rest of us?
We’re the extras in their hero journey.
Background noise in a story that was already written for them.
I’m not here to make you feel bad.
I’m here to make you feel seen.
If that stings — good.
Nerves mean you’re alive.
See, privilege isn’t evil.
It’s invisible.
Until someone points a light at it —
then suddenly, everyone’s a vampire.
You can keep the costume.
Just drop the performance.
Because pretending you earned it — that’s the horror.
Tonight, we’re not hunting ghosts.
We’re naming them.
The inherited ladder.
The secret door.
The internship that magically opened after “a family friend made a call.”
If you were born with a parachute,
don’t lecture the rest of us about the fall.
Welcome to The Privileged Dead.
They walk among us.
They network.
They fail upwards.
Iconic.
Pull up a chair.
I’ll be nice.
Until I’m not.
💰 PART 1 — Born on Level Five
They say life’s a game.
Maybe.
But some people start with cheat codes already activated — unlimited lives, private servers, and mummy on speed dial.
They call it luck.
I call it logistics.
Right surname, right postcode, right skin tone, right school — and somehow, they think it’s a personality trait.
The rest of us?
We’re still in the tutorial, fighting lag and debt, using broken controllers from last generation.
They talk about equality like it’s a subscription service.
They think everyone’s got access — just some of us forgot to update our payment method.
You ever notice the rich love giving advice?
“Just work hard.”
Sure.
Between rent, burnout, and trying to convince HR we’re human, I’ll squeeze that in.
They say, “We all have the same 24 hours.”
Yeah — except some people spend theirs in therapy over the pressure of being gifted a flat in Kensington.
Meanwhile, I’m deciding between food and Wi-Fi.
They post quotes about discipline from infinity pools.
Motivation hits different when your safety net has heating.
I’m not jealous.
I’m exhausted.
Because privilege never shuts up.
It podcasts.
It mentors.
It starts newsletters about mindfulness and monetises empathy.
And the rest of us?
We’re still trying to remember the password to survival.
The thing about being born on level five —
you start thinking gravity is optional.
That failure’s a bad vibe.
That success is spiritual — not structural.
They call it manifesting.
I call it marketing for people with soft hands.
You can’t attract abundance when the abundance is already inherited.
They love saying “money doesn’t buy happiness.”
True — but it rents peace and includes free delivery.
Some people’s biggest struggle is oat milk being out of stock.
Mine’s the rent reminder email titled “Final Notice.”
They panic when Uber surges; I panic when my card declines.
Different genres of horror — same planet.
They call it burnout.
We call it Tuesday.
I once met a guy who said he was “self-made.”
Then mentioned his dad “only” helped with the first property.
Just the one.
How generous.
They talk about networking like it’s noble.
Of course it’s easy to connect when your contacts come preloaded at birth.
They love resilience — it’s their favourite sport.
They watch other people play it while sipping something organic and posting about gratitude.
Some of them even write books about failure.
And sell them to people who can’t afford to fail.
Privilege has a PR team.
And it’s working overtime.
Every time someone calls them out, they host a podcast about “cancel culture.”
Because apparently consequences are oppression now.
They meditate to cope with success.
We drink to forget invoices.
They take “mental health days.”
We take “pretend you’re fine until payday” weeks.
Their “bad day” is the wrong sushi in their lunch order.
Ours is the electricity meter blinking red.
They apologise for existing in TED Talks.
We apologise for asking for annual leave.
They hire life coaches.
We Google how to breathe properly for free.
They start foundations to feel grounded.
We just hope the ground doesn’t collapse under us.
And yet, they still post quotes about gratitude.
From kitchens bigger than my flat.
With captions like “find joy in the little things.”
Yeah, mate — I’m trying.
It’s called portion control.
I’m not angry at privilege.
I’m angry at how boring it’s become.
Wealth used to mean mystery.
Now it means overpriced smoothies and a podcast about fasting.
They talk about generational wealth like it’s trauma.
“I had to take over my father’s company.”
Tragic.
Did you heal through the yacht?
They say “money doesn’t change people.”
Of course not — it just lets them stay the same without consequences.
Some even romanticise struggle.
They take ice baths for discomfort.
We take cold showers because the boiler’s broken.
They call it resilience training.
We call it winter.
And the rest of us —
we buy their books,
we like their posts,
we clap for their enlightenment.
Because that’s what we do —
we applaud ghosts for pretending to bleed.
The game was never fair.
But damn — they make losing look aspirational.
👻 PART 2 — The Haunted Workplace
Every office has ghosts.
Not the spooky kind — the ones with job titles and inherited parking spots.
You know who I mean.
The “Senior Advisor” who’s been there since the Queen had darker hair.
The “Head of Something” whose main contribution is surviving.
They don’t die.
They just get promoted and collect chairs.
Some people fail upwards so consistently it should qualify as cardio.
Every restructuring somehow ends with them managing the team that used to manage them.
You ask how they do it.
It’s not luck.
It’s bloodline — HR’s favourite family tree.
Meet Marcus.
He “earned” his position by being the son of the man who created it.
A true innovator — if nepotism counts as product development.
Marcus doesn’t work.
He attends.
He has that special skill of entering every room like he owns it — because technically, his father does.
Then there’s Chloe from HR.
Leads weekly “mindfulness workshops” for burnout she causes.
Tells everyone to use their voice, then writes them up for tone.
She’s the ghost of corporate empathy — all smiles, no soul.
Her superpower? Weaponising kindness.
And the CEO?
He’s Dracula in a Patagonia vest.
Sucks the life out of budgets and calls it “optimisation.”
Flies business class to sustainability conferences.
Every company’s got one of each.
The vampire, the ghost, the zombie intern still waiting for a real contract.
And the werewolf in finance who turns into a monster after quarterly reports.
LinkedIn is basically their graveyard.
Everyone buried under job titles and motivational quotes they didn’t write.
You scroll and it’s just ghosts showing off their tombstones.
“Resilience.”
“Leadership.”
“Thought leader.”
Words so embalmed they’ve lost their pulse.
Every Monday someone posts, “Another week, another opportunity.”
Yeah — for disappointment.
They call it hustle culture.
I call it spiritual unemployment.
The office used to be a place.
Now it’s a séance.
We log in, summon dead ideas, and pretend it’s progress.
Teams meetings feel like group therapy for people who caused the trauma.
Once, I joined a call that started with: “Let’s circle back to the circle we circled last week.”
That’s not a meeting.
That’s purgatory with Wi-Fi.
Corporate culture is just cosplay for adulthood.
Grown-ups playing “pretend important” until 5PM.
Some people wear costumes once a year —
others call them uniforms.
And office diversity?
Don’t make me laugh.
It’s usually one guy named Raj, one woman named Emma, and one PowerPoint slide about inclusion.
They call it representation; it’s more like theatre.
The ghost of fairness still gets no invite to the Christmas party.
Everyone’s haunted by something.
The ghost of potential.
The ghost of unpaid overtime.
The ghost of someone’s dad still calling the shots.
And the ghost of purpose — floating above every “team-building exercise” that ends in pizza and existential dread.
The scariest one?
The ghost of fairness.
Still rumoured to exist.
Never been seen.
But occasionally mentioned in HR memos — right next to “mental health awareness” and “cake for Brenda’s birthday.”
🧠 PART 3 — The Mirror Test
The thing about privilege — it’s invisible until someone takes it away.
You don’t see the ladder when you’re standing on it.
You only notice it when someone else asks how you got there.
I used to think privilege was just about money.
Then I met people with everything who still wanted to be victims.
Turns out misery’s universal — they just get the deluxe version with better lighting.
They say, “Not all privileged people are bad.”
True.
But most of them are bored.
And boredom with power is how empires start doing stupid things.
They love to say, “We all struggle.”
Sure.
Some of us struggle to breathe between shifts.
They struggle to pick between Mykonos and Milan.
Sometimes I look at them and think — maybe they really believe it.
That they worked harder.
That they deserved more.
That the world’s just fairer to good people.
It’s comforting, isn’t it?
To think luck has morals.
They talk about self-awareness like it’s a hobby.
Read a book, light a candle, post a quote —
Congratulations, you’ve discovered humility with next-day delivery.
The truth is, we all have privilege.
Some in money.
Some in timing.
Some in the luxury of not having to care.
But if you’ve never had to question it,
never had to explain your existence,
never had to make yourself smaller so someone else feels safe —
then yeah, you’re one of the lucky ones.
And luck is the one thing people hate being told they have.
We say we want equality,
but deep down we love hierarchy.
It tells us who to envy and who to ignore.
Without it, we might have to look in the mirror
and ask why we need to feel above anyone at all.
Privilege isn’t just inherited.
It’s defended.
Polished.
Gift-wrapped in jokes that aren’t funny
and rules that were never fair.
The system doesn’t even need to hide anymore —
it just smiles for the camera and calls it progress.
Some people call it tradition.
Others call it networking.
Either way, the password’s always the same:
“We don’t mean you.”
And the rest of us?
We play along.
Because it’s easier to laugh than to look angry.
Angry people don’t get promotions.
Angry people get labelled.
So we smile.
We nod.
We joke about the system while keeping it alive.
Because surviving inside it feels safer than challenging it.
That’s the quiet genius of privilege —
it teaches obedience dressed as optimism.
Maybe the real horror of privilege isn’t how much it gives.
It’s how little it teaches.
Because when everything comes easy,
you start confusing luck with virtue
and compassion with inconvenience.
That’s the mirror test — most people fail it.
Not because they’re cruel.
But because they’ve never had to look long enough
to notice their reflection blinking back.
🔚 OUTRO — Happy Halloween, Humans
So yeah.
The privileged dead.
Still walking.
Still talking.
Still getting promoted for breathing.
I used to think monsters lived under the bed.
Now I know they live in boardrooms.
In parliament.
In private schools and panel discussions.
They don’t bite.
They brunch.
And somehow, that’s worse.
They call it etiquette.
I call it emotional tax evasion.
Halloween’s once a year.
But some people never take the mask off.
They just upgrade the filter and call it self-growth.
So, if you see a ghost tonight, don’t scream.
Ask what school they went to.
If it starts with “Saint,” run.
If they say “Oxford,” move countries.
Here’s the funny thing — we all play a part in it.
We like our villains well-dressed and polite.
We vote for them.
We follow them.
We quote them in job interviews.
We love to hate them — right up until we want to be them.
Everyone thinks they’re the underdog.
Even the people who own the stadium.
That’s the trick — privilege makes you feel humble for having everything.
Privilege isn’t a costume.
It’s comfort — and comfort’s addictive.
It teaches you to confuse being comfortable with being kind.
The trick?
It feels like virtue.
You ever notice how the privileged apologise?
Always in statements.
“I’m sorry if anyone was offended.”
That’s not remorse.
That’s PR with lighting.
Meanwhile, the rest of us apologise for existing.
For being late.
For being tired.
For asking questions at the wrong time.
We call it manners —
but really, it’s survival with good posture.
Anyway.
I’m getting angry, so that’s enough honesty for one night.
My drink’s empty.
My patience too.
And somewhere, Marcus from HR just reposted a quote about leadership.
If you made it this far, congratulations —
you’ve survived another episode of class horror.
Take a bow — or a breath.
They both count as victories these days.
Next week, we’ll probably offend someone else.
Maybe even you.
That’s growth — the uncomfortable kind.
Happy Halloween, humans.
Try not to lose your soul in the networking queue.
Uninfluenced.
Unpaid.
Unfiltered.
I’m Noah Jackman —
and this…
is The Unfiltered Outsider.
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