April 27, 2029

The world's most popular search engine, MyRealittee.com, set a new record with its long-awaited ¥8.3 trillion IPO on the WongDaq stock exchange in Shanghai. MyRealittee.com's unusual IPO process, a reverse double-blind Flemish auction with a half-somersault, left analysts scratching their heads but did not prevent a buying frenzy that drove the share price up to ¥1279 by the end of trading. MyRealittee.com is now worth ¥74.8 trillion, approximately four times the GDP of the United States.

MyRealittee.com's search technology crawls users' brains in order to provide them information that supports their preconceived ideas. Journalists, philosophers, and social scientists have denounced MyRealittee.com for offering emotionally satisfying but completely false information. In an interview last year with online magazine, StillWiredAfterAllTheseYears.com, 17-year-old founder Barack Patel defended the company's approach:

"What's reality? It's just a set of so-called facts that the government-media-collusion wants you to believe. In the old days, the information oligarchs monopolized reality and spoon fed it to the masses through charismatic 2D-TV personalities with boring haircuts. Then the blogosphere undermined the establishment by letting ordinary people with cool facial hair access alternative facts without media intermediation. But there was too much information. People had to sift through and reject all the facts that they didn't believe. MyRealittee.com's Data-Sieving Inculcational Solipsism filters all the facts that users won't believe anyway, so it's easier for people to actuate their unique realities."

Mr. Patel disputed allegations that MyRealittee.com's technology not only filters information but also invents fabrications:

"We don't fabricate. We interpolate. Occasionally, the facts that you believe don't exist. The human brain normally deals with low-fact situations by bending information to fit its reality. But this bending process can induce mental anguish in some individuals. MyRealittee.com automates the information bending with Neuro-Warp Infatuation Mechanics that simulate cranial interpolation so that you can have your reality without the guilt."

MyRealittee.com's approach evidently appeals to Internet users. Since its launch last spring, the site has signed on millions of new members every day and now boasts over 2.9 billion users worldwide. One of the factors in MyRealittee.com's success has been its Realittee Collectives, groups of people with shared perspectives. The website already hosts over a million Collectives with such diverse themes as "U.N.-Zionist Conspiracy to Eradicate Siberian Horny Toads," "Things Were Better In the Old Days," and "You Are All Just Figments of My Imagination."

MyReallitte.com may become a victim of its own success. One of the most popular Collectives is called "MyReallittee.com Controls Our Minds." But Mr. Patel takes it all in stride, declaring, "Everyone is entitled to their own reality."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

News From the Future is a series of dagblog.com exclusives about events that have yet to occur. We've received the articles through a glitch in the blogosphere known as a bunghole. Previous headlines:

• China Completes Great Fan