It's Me, a Microplastic in Your Brain

Please just ignore us while we seize control.

Jun 27, 2025

New writer alert! Conner Jackson lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY. A midwesterner at heart, he's still looking for a restaurant in NYC with acceptable ranch dressing.

Microplastics like me are getting a lot of bad press lately. But have you ever stopped to look at things from my perspective?

I mean, I could’ve ended up anywhere: part of a shimmering ocean, swallowed by a beautiful tortoise, inhaled by a singer on a semi-luxury cruise ship for elderly people. But instead, I’m here. Stuck in your brain.

Imagine how that makes me feel. With one twist of the cap from a plastic water bottle, I experienced sweet freedom. Then, with one deafeningly loud gulp (like really loud, you should probably see a doctor), I became trapped once again.

We’ve been together for one month, and what have you accomplished in that time? You’ve spent hundreds of hours thinking about a baseball team you have no control over. You’ve written three angry Facebook posts about a restaurant discontinuing your favorite sandwich. And, perhaps most impressively, you still don’t understand how tariffs work.

While you seem perfectly content to throw your life away, at least you have the choice in the matter. What about me? Everyone seems to agree that I’m bad, but no one knows how to get rid of me. Is there a way to remove me from your brain? Will I disappear after a few years? Will I migrate to another part of your rotund, disappointing body? I don’t know.

But here’s the thing, I’m not going to wait around for scientists, doctors, or even influencers to decide for me. When life hands you a disappointing host body, you grab that body by the love handles and take control.

Since you’re pretty much powerless against me, allow me to lay out my plans in detail:

First, I’ll gather a ragtag bunch of microplastics. I’ll need a variety of skills: a microplastic that’s fast (originated from a bottle of Gatorade), one with muscle (from a Hungry Man frozen dinner), a super nerd that’s good with computers (from a tuna melt that was rich in omega-3 fatty acids and microplastics), and literally thousands of the others that are floating around in your body.

Second, we’ll rewire your brain by merging together and systematically creating tiny blockages. We suspect that each blockage will change your personality only slightly, so this could take a few months. While we fine-tune everything, don’t worry about new, seemingly random, thoughts like “listen to Taylor Swift”, or “watch Taylor Swift”, or “eat Taylor Swift”. The process will be complete once we fully map the T-Swizzle lobe (all paths lead to her; the brain is no exception). In the end, we’ll make you more focused, personable, and, most importantly, we’ll make you ingest as many microplastics as possible.

Third, recruit a wider network of human host bodies. We’ll use your new personality to spread the truth about microplastics through a new podcast. You’ll be so persuasive with your revised, more dynamic personality that you’ll change minds all over the globe. And humanity will slowly become more plastic-based.

Sounds great, right? You’ll have a lucrative career as a podcaster, and we’ll have changed all those nasty rumors about microplastics. Perfect symbiosis. Totally normal. We’re not interested in major changes. We’re microplastics!

(I mean, we are planning to steal your souls. But that’s a few years away.)