I want to introduce my first-ever YouTube channel, called Everything Is Something Else. I’m Christopher Hartline.

This is an introduction to my new YouTube channel—but more accurately, it’s an extension of questions I’ve been circling for years.

This project examines how to remain human in systems that quietly train us not to be. Technology, productivity culture, AI tools, media narratives — none of these are neutral, and none of them should be allowed to run on autopilot. Here, I slow things down and examine how these systems shape our time, attention, judgment, and sense of agency.

The current focus of the channel is practical and grounded: how to use modern tools — especially AI — deliberately. Not as authorities. Not as replacements for thinking. But as assistants that serve human framing, values, and decision-making. Email, work habits, digital organization, and everyday tech workflows become test cases for a larger idea: digital sovereignty.

This isn’t about rejecting technology, and it isn’t about hype. It’s about learning where the boundaries belong — what should be automated, what should remain human, and how to reclaim time without giving up control or context. If you’ve lived through a few technology cycles, you’ve probably felt the difference between a tool that empowers you and a system that quietly runs you. That distinction matters here.

Everything Is Something Else didn’t start as a tech project. Earlier work under this name examined news, media, capitalism, religion, and culture more broadly — especially the stories we absorb without realizing we’re being shaped by them. That lens hasn’t disappeared; it’s been sharpened and applied closer to home.

This isn’t a place for outrage or team-building. It’s a place to practice clear thinking, notice hidden assumptions, and step out of reflexive reactions long enough to see what else might be possible — both in our tools and in ourselves.

The channel can be found here: https://youtube.com/@SomethingElseShow

The map they give is not the land.

Everything is something else.