From Paparazzi to Bootlegs: Inside The Leak Machine
Why we crave the sneak peek, and what it's costing us.
Happy Friday đđŒ I donât like surprises but I do like being surprised.
Jump scares? Absolutely not. But witnessing or consuming something for the first timeâa song, a movie, a performance, a sunset? Sign me up.
A few weeks ago, I was surprised by an article about surprise.
Vogue published a piece on the flood of paparazzi photos from the set of The Devil Wears Prada 2. It captured a familiar frustration around âspoilersâ and âleaksâ (and âbootlegsâ). Which got me thinking: what exactly gets broken when we see too much, too soon?
The science points to three sisters: Wonder. Awe. Surprise.
And I know those girls! I famously refused to listen to the Hamilton cast album before I saw it on stage. I avoid b-roll like the plague. Itâs not that thereâs one ârightâ way to do itâbut preserving that first-time magic has always felt worth it to me.
So this week, I want to ask: Where is Wonder? How can we find it? How has social media reshaped it? And what would it look like to not just protect Wonder, but to practice itâto create more of it for ourselves and each other?
The Landscape
That Vogue article is only one thread in a much longer story. Nowadays, everything feels like it can and will get captured, leaked, clipped, or shared. I think Iâve accumuatively seen the entireity of Taylor, Beyonce, and Gaga's tours.
Paparazzi and tabloids trace back decades. The term âpaparazziâ entered popular culture in the 1960s, but the practice had roots in the 19th centuryâphotographers bribing or stalking public figures to break untold stories. By the 1950s and â60s, tabloids turned those stolen shots into an industry. Fast forward to internet forums and Tumblr, and suddenly spoilers werenât accidentsâthey were a sport. Studios started planting fake leaks just to throw people off.
Theater has always had its own version of this. Bootlegs have been floating around foreverâand thereâs tension there, too. Footage frustrates performers, recording is distracting, and for many, bootlegs are the only way to experience work they wouldnât otherwise see. All those things are true.
And of course, marketers release b-roll and full songs and behind-the-scenes clips. Why wouldnât they? Thatâs how you drum up interest. Thatâs how you sell tickets. None of it is inherently wrong.
But it does make me wonder: what happens to Wonder, Awe, and Surprise when we already know so much going in? Does it change how we watch? Does it change what we value?
And thatâs when I realizedâIâve been asking myself the same questions for years.
The Personal
This really clicked for me in college. I remember realizing how many shows in the theater canon I didnât know. For a while I felt guilty about it, like I was behind, like I needed to catch up.
But at some point, I decided to do the opposite. I stopped trying to fill in the gaps and started intentionally shielding myself. I figured: if I havenât heard it yet, why not let the first time be the time? Why not save that fresh encounter for when I actually get to sit in a theaterâor when I get the chance to work on it myself?
It became a kind of philosophy. Instead of chasing familiarity, I leaned into the unknown. Not because one way is right or wrong, but because I realized how much I value that first-time rush of an experience.
My husband has stopped watching movie trailers for this exact reason. I donât watch b-roll or listen to songs from shows I havenât seen.
I donât think either of us made this decision with the explicit intention of delaying dopamine. But wethere we knew it or not, that is what it achieves.
The Science
Hereâs the thing: Wonder isnât some mystical force floating outside of us. Itâs chemistry. Itâs dopamine.
Think about the moments that stop you cold: a sunset that paints the sky, a song that knocks the wind out of you, the overture of a show youâve been waiting years to see. Thatâs dopamine firingâbut itâs the slow, deep kind. Psychologists call it Awe, and the science is clear: Awe stretches our sense of time, reduces stress, even increases generosity. It literally pulls us out of ourselves and reminds us weâre part of something larger.
Now contrast that with scrolling, spoilers, b-roll, leaks, etc. They tap the same system, but with a different rhythm: fast, unpredictable jolts. Each swipe, each clip, each notification gives your brain a tiny shot of dopamine. Thatâs why it feels so hard to stop. The problem isnât that those hits existâitâs that when our brains are constantly flooded with them, the receptors that register pleasure start to dull. In other words: the more we binge on the small stuff, the harder it is to feel the big stuff.
And thatâs where the danger lies. Not that memes or teasers or bootlegs are âbadââtheyâre often joyful in their own rightâbut that the loop of quick hits can numb us to the slower build of Wonder, Awe, and Surprise. We start to crave immediacy, efficiency, controlâwhen the very nature of Wonder is that itâs slow, unplanned, and unrushed.
So the question isnât whether we should pick one over the other. Itâs how we make sure the snacks donât ruin our appetite for the feast. How we keep enough spaceâenough patienceâfor the kind of experience that doesnât just distract us for a moment, but transforms us for a while.
The Practice
So where does that leave us?
If Wonder, Awe, and Surprise are harder to stumble into on their own, maybe the answer is to start practicing them on purpose. To leave little cracks in the schedule where they can sneak in.
Sometimes that means resisting the urge to click play on the teaser, or to watch the rehearsal clip before seeing the show. Sometimes itâs as simple as looking upâat the skyline, at the street corner, at the person across from youâand letting yourself be startled by how much is right there.
And sometimes itâs about creating Wonder for each other. Holding back the reveal instead of announcing the announcement. Sharing an old story in a new way. Designing momentsâonline and in real lifeâthat stand on their own, instead of feeling like just another piece of content feeding into something bigger.
I donât think weâll ever go back to a world without spoilers or leaks. And honestly, I wouldnât want to. Access matters. Connection is cool. The quick hits are fun. But if we want to stay awake to the deeper stuff, we have to make space for it.
Because Wonder, Awe, and Surprise are still out thereâwaiting in the wings, waiting in the sky, waiting in the story we havenât heard yet. The question is whether weâll let them find us.
One Last Thing
This week we announced that BEAU is transferring uptown (still off-Broadway) after our sold-out run this summer. Itâs thrilling. Truly. And the outpouring of love has been overwhelming in the best wayâmessages from friends I havenât heard from in years, people reaching out from every corner of my life just to say congrats. Thatâs a gift.
But if Iâm honest, the dopamine hit of announcement day can be disorienting. The flood of notifications, the comments, the sense of being âseenââitâs intoxicating. Iâve experienced it a handful of times now, and Iâve learned that if Iâm not careful, I can mistake the spike for the substance. I can start to feel like the post, the press release, the ânews,â is the point.
And itâs not.
The pointâthe mealâis the work itself. (I know, that sounds a little eye-rolly.) The parts I really love most are being in the rehearsal room, having deep conversations with collaborators. The warm-up before a show. Playing the songs. Messing up onstage. Thatâs where the real nourishment is. Thatâs where Wonder, Awe, and Surprise actually live.
The announcement is the snack. Beautiful, joyful, absolutely worth savoringâbut still the snack. The danger comes when we confuse the snack for the feast, when we let the dopamine rush of being noticed eclipse the deeper fulfillment of being present.
So yes, Iâll celebrate. Iâll soak up the messages and let myself feel the love. And then, weâll be back in rehearsal. Back to work.
Maybe thatâs the invitation: to savor the snacks, but not mistake them for the meal. To leave room for Wonder, Awe, and Surprise to sit at the table too.As always, thanks for being here.
See you next week â„ïž
âMatt