Breeding for Content
She murmurs a name before the lungs can gasp,
arranging the nursery as backdrop–
adjusts the ring light’s glare until the crib glows sterile, pastel, new.
Here the ritual starts: the camera primed before the child can cry,
a registry page loaded with options, each gift wrapped and tagged to buy.
Her belly grows in daily posts, followers count the swelling curve,
milestone after milestone, chronicled as if the meaning must be preserved.
Pregnancy test filmed in focus, the shock rehearsed, each tear a practiced line,
applause beneath the comments,
celebration that never asks if the moment’s even mine.
Bump shots filtered and scheduled, one for every passing week,
the unborn’s future auctioned out for sponsorship and product sneak.
Each contraction welcomed with an update, the waiting room becomes a stage,
their private agony streamed as public narrative, sorrow rebranded into wage.
He’s dressed for likes, not warmth–posed to match a seasonal hue,
fed on the clock, formula timed for the latest breakthrough view.
Tiny shoes, branded onesies, each giggle uploaded for the feed,
every burp and fumble choreographed to suit an audience’s need.
Milestones planned for maximum reach: first tooth, first step, first word–
shared before the child remembers, privacy crushed, meaning blurred.
The soft ache of parenthood replaced by numbers, profit margins tight,
affection doled in doses, measured by the viral spike each night.
Playdates become production sets, innocence prepped for debut,
a brand built on small hands–no legacy, just the fantasy pursued.
She didn’t want a child–she needed fresh engagement, a tender-faced device,
he didn’t hope for family–just a new channel for advice.
No cradle ever rocked so cold, so calculated and unseen,
the haunting is the hunger, the echo in every machine.
In ancient times, children were prayers, wild spirits, seeds of fate–
now they’re flesh coded as content, birthrights siphoned to sate.
Lullabies are scripts recited, each nap set to a tune,
dreams auctioned for subscribers, milestones mapped for a brand’s balloon.
A child is not an audience–nor an ornament for grief or gain,
yet here the cradle is currency, and comfort just a refrain.
These newborns inherit algorithms, futures laced with digital thread,
their childhoods ghostwritten by metrics, a ghost raised where hope once led.
The nursery glows with sponsored light, confessions sponsored, pain disguised,
she files away his first tear, another post, another prize.
You didn’t create a lineage, just propagated need,
a pawn in this endless cycle, bred to validate, bred to feed.
Their cries are monetized, first steps commodified,
selfhood mortgaged for the stream–
and when silence finally settles, the cost of love is only a meme.
To breed for content is to sell the sacred, to empty life before it’s lived–
and raise a ghost who haunts the camera, longing for what nothing ever gives.