Software as a Scene
You ever finish a show and immediately open TikTok just to watch edits of it? Not even because you miss the plot or the characters, but because you miss the feeling. That hollow, aching, huge feeling. The one where the music swells and everything hits at once. Where it’s not just good, it’s too good, and it ruins your night in the best way possible.
I want to make software that does that.
Software is falling into the same trap.
Not something that just makes you productive. Not something that gets out of your way. Not something just clean or just minimal or just fast. I want to make software that makes you feel like you just watched your favorite scene again for the first time. Like you just heard Skyfall by Adele for the first time, with proper speakers, in a dark room, with the volume turned up too high. That kind of thing.
I want it to feel like Viva La Vida right before the last chorus. Like Exit Music (for a Film) by Radiohead when the drums finally hit. Like Creep, but when it’s playing in the background of a montage you weren’t ready for. Like My Way as the credits roll and everything you loved just ended. Like I Bet on Losing Dogs when you’re already tired and everything is just too quiet. Like Somewhere Only We Know when it catches you off guard in a video edit. Like The Line by Twenty One Pilots when it says something you didn’t want to hear. Like As the World Caves In when the camera zooms out. Like Gilded Lily when it hits the echo and you feel like you’re floating.
And I want it to feel like Matt Smith’s speech to Akhaten. When he’s standing in front of something ancient and terrible, with nothing but words, and he chooses to remember. Every loss, every face, every moment that hurt. When he cracks, and yells, and cries not because he has to, but because he’s still here, and still trying, and still saving people he’s never met just because he can. I want to make software that holds that kind of weight. That kind of impossible kindness. That grief and hope layered into one.
I want to make software that feels like all of that, all at once.
I want to make software that feels like the trailer intros from the 2000s. The ones where the music starts soft, the voiceover whispers something dramatic, and then suddenly it builds. You don’t even know what the movie is yet, but the pacing and the cut and the way the beat lands right on the line that changes the whole tone. You feel it. You feel like you just watched something complete. A whole movie, in two minutes. You walk away thinking, yeah, I’m watching that later.
I want to make software that has that. That trailer drop moment. That swell. That rhythm. That emotion. That hit of adrenaline and nostalgia and curiosity and sadness and excitement, all crushed into a single beat.
I want to make software that feels like the ending scene of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, when Frank Sinatra starts singing That's Life and suddenly it all clicks. The history, the characters, the weight of it. You weren’t expecting it to end like that, but it does. And it’s perfect. I want to make software that feels like The Big Bang Theory ending. Like The Boys finale. That moment where you just sit there, staring at the credits, not because you’re waiting for a post-credit scene, but because you’re trying to process what you just felt.
I want to make software that makes people feel like that, every day.
Not just when they finish a show.
Not just when they break down and need to feel something.
Not just when they’re trying to distract themselves from work or sadness or silence.
Every day.
It’s weird how music and media get to have all the emotion. Music can ruin your entire afternoon and you’ll still put it on loop. Shows can break you in two and you’ll go right back and rewatch your favorite episode the second you’re done. And somehow, that’s a good thing. That’s how strong the feeling is; it hurts and you want it again.
But software?
Software barely even tries. You open it. You use it. You close it. It helps you do things, sure. But it never says anything. It never holds your attention. It never sticks in your memory. Nobody cries over an app.
And I think that’s a shame. A real, real shame.
Because we use software more. More than we watch shows or listen to music. We live in it. Every day. Every hour. It’s the first thing we touch in the morning and the last thing we close at night. So why doesn’t it feel like anything? Why doesn’t it move us?
Music can be physical. The bass in your chest. The ringing in your ears. TV wraps you in color and pacing and sound. Software has sight. Sometimes a click. But not much else. And still, it could mean something. It could feel like something.
I want someone to open something I made and feel their chest get tighter. I want them to remember a time in their life, and not even know why. I want them to feel like they’re being seen, like the way a lyric feels when it’s saying exactly what you were too embarrassed to say out loud. I want it to feel like an edit of a show you lived through.
I want to make software that people wish they could experience again for the first time.
Because people shouldn’t have to wait until after work, or the end of the day, or the next bad week, just to feel something beautiful.
And then maybe, if it’s good enough, they’ll close it, and open it again. Just to feel it one more time.
Like hitting replay on a song you’re not ready to let go of yet.
I want to make software that feels like closure.
I want to make software that feels like a finale.
I want to make software that matters.
They deserve to feel it when they open a tool they use every day.
They deserve to feel it now.