Solitary tech worker Mischa Osborn is mourning the shelving of her passion project, an artificial intelligence algorithm capable of love, when a chance encounter with a social media celebrity leads her spiraling into an all-consuming obsession. Simultaneously, someone, or something, is watching.
Mischa Osborn spends her days as a ProWatcher-keeping distracted people on task and lonely ones accompanied-from her Brooklyn Megabuilding, while eating PetriMeat Steax and working out with her favorite personal trainer, a straight-talking algorithm named Tory.
Her carefully constructed, isolated existence is suddenly upended by a chance real space encounter with a Highlight Reel celebrity, Nicolás Adán Luchano. On their first date, hiking in Kuulsuits and watching DroneBeez pollinate flowers, Mischa experiences a brief but intense real space connection.
Mischa takes to relentlessly watching Nic on Reel. As Mischa's Reel Watching spirals into an all-consuming obsession, and even real space stalking, Mischa takes increasingly desperate measures to be seen and valued, sucking others into her vortex of obsession until she completely loses control.
Meanwhile, someone is equally obsessed with Mischa, tracking her every move and perhaps even influencing her choices.
A tale of how technology enables obsession, envy, and unrelenting comparison, told through an eccentric cast of interconnected characters, “The Distractions” invites us to reflect on who we are watching, and why.
