From Paparazzi to Bootlegs: Inside The Leak Machine
Why we crave the sneak peek, and what it's costing us.
Happy Friday 👋🏼 I don’t like surprises but I do like being surprised.
Jump scares? Absolutely not. But witnessing or consuming something for the first time—a 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 “spoilers” and “leaks” (and “bootlegs”). 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. It’s not that there’s one “right” way to do it—but 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 it—to 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 I’ve accumuatively seen the entireity of Taylor, Beyonce, and Gaga's tours.
Paparazzi and tabloids trace back decades. The term “paparazzi” entered popular culture in the 1960s, but the practice had roots in the 19th century—photographers bribing or stalking public figures to break untold stories. By the 1950s and ’60s, tabloids turned those stolen shots into an industry. Fast forward to internet forums and Tumblr, and suddenly spoilers weren’t accidents—they 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 forever—and there’s tension there, too. Footage frustrates performers, recording is distracting, and for many, bootlegs are the only way to experience work they wouldn’t otherwise see. All those things are true.
And of course, marketers release b-roll and full songs and behind-the-scenes clips. Why wouldn’t they? That’s how you drum up interest. That’s 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 that’s when I realized—I’ve 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 didn’t 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 haven’t 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 theater—or 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 don’t watch b-roll or listen to songs from shows I haven’t seen.
I don’t 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
Here’s the thing: Wonder isn’t some mystical force floating outside of us. It’s chemistry. It’s 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 you’ve been waiting years to see. That’s dopamine firing—but it’s 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 we’re 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. That’s why it feels so hard to stop. The problem isn’t that those hits exist—it’s 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 that’s where the danger lies. Not that memes or teasers or bootlegs are “bad”—they’re often joyful in their own right—but that the loop of quick hits can numb us to the slower build of Wonder, Awe, and Surprise. We start to crave immediacy, efficiency, control—when the very nature of Wonder is that it’s slow, unplanned, and unrushed.
So the question isn’t whether we should pick one over the other. It’s how we make sure the snacks don’t ruin our appetite for the feast. How we keep enough space—enough patience—for the kind of experience that doesn’t 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 it’s as simple as looking up—at the skyline, at the street corner, at the person across from you—and letting yourself be startled by how much is right there.
And sometimes it’s about creating Wonder for each other. Holding back the reveal instead of announcing the announcement. Sharing an old story in a new way. Designing moments—online and in real life—that stand on their own, instead of feeling like just another piece of content feeding into something bigger.
I don’t think we’ll ever go back to a world without spoilers or leaks. And honestly, I wouldn’t 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 there—waiting in the wings, waiting in the sky, waiting in the story we haven’t heard yet. The question is whether we’ll 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. It’s thrilling. Truly. And the outpouring of love has been overwhelming in the best way—messages from friends I haven’t heard from in years, people reaching out from every corner of my life just to say congrats. That’s a gift.
But if I’m honest, the dopamine hit of announcement day can be disorienting. The flood of notifications, the comments, the sense of being “seen”—it’s intoxicating. I’ve experienced it a handful of times now, and I’ve learned that if I’m not careful, I can mistake the spike for the substance. I can start to feel like the post, the press release, the “news,” is the point.
And it’s not.
The point—the meal—is 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. That’s where the real nourishment is. That’s where Wonder, Awe, and Surprise actually live.
The announcement is the snack. Beautiful, joyful, absolutely worth savoring—but 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, I’ll celebrate. I’ll soak up the messages and let myself feel the love. And then, we’ll be back in rehearsal. Back to work.
Maybe that’s 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 ♥️
—Matt