I could be playing Battlefield 6 right now.

Yeah, the one that dropped with a trailer so over-produced it looked like someone gave Michael Bay an unlimited Red Bull budget and told him to “feel the emotions of war.”

But no, instead of pretending I’m a tactical genius with a 12-year-old screaming “EZ clap” in my headset, I’m sitting here writing this.

Stone-cold sober, unless you count coffee and mild regret about life decisions..

But this is what I do now—trade kill streaks for keystrokes, rage-quits for rants.

This is ADOTAT Unfiltered: my weekly campaign into the absurd theater of media, marketing, and whatever’s left of truth. No brand managers. No sanitized copy pretending “authenticity” is a KPI. Just the raw feed from someone who’s seen too many ad decks and not enough daylight.

So yes, I could be playing Battlefield 6, chasing XP like it still matters. Instead, I’m here writing about it, roasting the same industry that sold it to me. You’re still reading, which either makes you brave, bored, or complicit.

Either way—thanks for spawning in.

This is going to annoy some people. Maybe two.

Which is fine.

I’ve accepted that 40% of my readers never make it past the headline, and another 30% are hate-reading while pretending they’re above it all.

So, here we are, if you’re still reading: stop saying “thank you.”

Not because gratitude is outdated, right, it’s totally the backbone of civilization, but because “thank you” has become the verbal equivalent of elevator music: constant, ignorable, and vaguely insincere.

We’ve turned it into punctuation for our awkward digital lives.

“Thanks!”

“Thanks so much!!”

“Thanks in advance.”

None of these mean anything. (Said Deadpanned)

“Thanks in advance,” in particular, is emotional extortion disguised as mild marketing manners.

Our inboxes are now overflowing with AI-generated empathy.

“Thank you for your patience.”

“Thank you for contacting us.”

“Thank you for unsubscribing."

You’re not being thanked—you’re being processed.

Gratitude is now just another user retention metric.

Every interaction is A/B-tested for warmth.

Every “thank you” is a UX feature designed to stop you from closing the tab.

Somewhere in Silicon Valley, there’s a growth team optimizing the font size of your feelings.

And we’re all complicit.

We type “thanks” like emotional bubble wrap, terrified of being the one person on the thread who didn’t sound human enough. Those who express actual emotion?

Now, as someone who lives a double life—Orthodox Jew by conviction, ad guy because I’m guessing a masochist —I spend half my week saying Baruch Atto Hashem Elokeinu Melech Ho’olom

…and the other half saying, “Thanks for looping me in, someone I’m not sure is an AI or not.”

The hardest part of my life isn’t always Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (though having joints that pop like bubble wrap isn’t ideal). I

t’s switching between Yeshivishe sincerity and advertising agnosticism without losing my sanity—or my accents.

In one world, words create reality.

In the other, words are just optimized deliverables with better lighting.

And then, just to keep things interesting, my doctor decided to turn my bloodstream into a pharmaceutical startup.

Half the medications for EDS make me drowsy; the other half make me existential.

Have you ever been existential about being drowsy? Who knows.

One might be mildly hallucinogenic, or it could just be the new “energy coffee” I accidentally mixed with what might be cocaine or some sugar substitute. Oi, I genuinely can’t tell the difference anymore.

So yes, maybe I’m seeing double.

But even the double I’m seeing knows that “thank you” has become a dead phrase. Even, Thank you, Thank you!

Here’s the thing: Us Jews figured out real gratitude centuries ago.

A brochoh isn’t a polite response—it’s a spiritual re-cal-libration. I thought those words like that as I wrote that, almost with a bit of a funk soundtrack going down.

The word Baruch doesn’t mean “thanks.” It means “to draw down,” as in bringing divine awareness into your moment. (In Hebrew, the root ברך (b-r-ch) also means “to bend” — like a knee — and by extension, “to draw down.”)

When you say a brochoh on coffee, you’re not blessing the caffeine (although, I do sometimes think that) you are acknowledging the absurd miracle that it exists, that you exist, and that somehow, despite everything, you still function.

That’s not “thanks.” That’s cosmic humility about coffee.

Baruch Hashem.

Compare that with “thank you for your partnership.”

That’s not gratitude; that’s marketing lingo wearing a human-skin suit.

Instead of reflexively saying “thanks,” try something alive:

If you can’t even think that, I think we've got ourselves a problem.

Gratitude isn’t etiquette—it’s an act of rebellion against the numbness that we all get, so let’s all acknowledge.

So stop saying “thank you” like you’re closing a customer support ticket.

Say something weird, real, inconvenient.

Let it land.

Let it cost you a second of awareness of your own existence in the immenseness which is the universe.

And if all else fails, make a brochoh.
You’ll sound strange, but at least you’ll mean it.