The Mindset app is a momentous success and the answer to everyone’s dreams. Ben is the newest overnight success. So, what could possibly go wrong now? Find out in Mindset #4 from Vault Comics!
MINDSET #4
Writer: Zack Kaplan
Artist: John Pearson
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Editor: Adrian Wassel
Publisher: Vault Comics
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: October 19, 2022
Previously in Mindset: Ben and his friends graduate and get their startup rolling. Ben is the idealist, seeing this as a way to free people from social media. Eitan, the realist, demands to know how they will get people to use it. He wants to use the signal to nudge people into using the app. After all, there is no way free of manipulation – people manipulate each other all the time. Finally, they launch the app, and it goes viral overnight. Soon they are invited to a party full of venture capitalists. Atlanta Hanna is there. So is Peter Winfield. Winfield wants to buy the app, but Ben does not want to sell it. But Winfield buys the company hosting them. He gives them some time to think over his offer. Then Ben gets the idea of sneaking into Winfield’s house and using a looping version of the signal on him so they can control him permanently.
THE PERFECT OVERNIGHT SUCCESS
Mindset #4 is distinctly creepy. On its surface, it is the story of a tech startup and a venture capitalist, of social media and the latest trends in our world. We may not like it or want to admit it, but frequently diving into social media can nudge people and influence them. This story builds on those ideas and takes them in a direction that is seriously disquieting.
Ben, Eitan, and Josiah get the deal they want. Kushal is dead. But Ben narrates that he decided to visit his family in India and go off the grid for a while. Winfield agrees to give them everything they need, and they get to keep the company and its code. He just wants revenue. They can even handpick the sponsors. For a moment, this makes no sense to Ben, and he has the thought, for a moment, that he could not tell who was selling whom.
The following morning, the lawyers come to finalize the deal. Ben does not feel well. Atlanta meets him and they talk about the future, about where they are going. Atlanta wants to be his VIP host. After all, she knows her way around this crazy world he is now in.
And after that, everyone gets what they want. Ben’s company gets the tech campus of their dreams. They get hundreds of millions of users. They handpick ethical lifestyle advertising sponsors. Ben, as the face of the company, travels the world with Atlanta. Ben’s parents use the app, apologize to him for being terrible parents, and tell him they are getting an amicable divorce.
And someone comes looking for Kushal and Ben remembers that he is dead.
Eitan tells Ben about a study that claims people are becoming addicted to Mindset. Ben feels they are becoming the thing they hated, while Eitan counters that they are replacing it with something better. Are they sharing influences or forcing influences? Eitan suggests that maybe he needs a dose of their app.
Ben continues his travels and spends more time with Atlanta, becoming close to her. One evening she comes close to confessing something to him but becomes irritated because at that moment, he is using his phone. He does not even realize he was doing that. And she tells him that he is as regular as clockwork with it, checking it about every three hours and a little bit more. Which is just about as long as the suggestion window for the app.
THE NIGHTMARE WITHIN THE DREAM
MIndset #4 is a cerebral horror story. The “monster” is a lack of free will coupled with the lack of insight to realize it, which is another way to be held captive. The art captures this and gives the story the feeling of a dream that starts out as something normal but becomes more bizarre. At the very start, there is one page panel where the words are Ben’s explanation that Kushal has gone home. It is framed in a pool of blood being mopped up after his death. The following day, we see a little more blood symbolism, but now Ben is drawn as a sketch, inked in but not colored, while Atlanta, Winfield, and the background are fully colored in.
Later, when everything seems perfect with Mindset, Ben is drawn in such a way that he looks as though he is being reflected in several vertical shards of a mirror. Is he complete, or is he falling apart? Who is controlling whom? Is there any way to escape manipulation, or do human beings crave the sense of comfort of being able to give up some of their responsibilities?
BOTTOM LINE: A TRULY MODERN HORROR STORY
Mindset #4 may be quiet, but it is also disturbing. It is the ultimate exploration of gaslighting, except that we do not know for sure who is manipulating whom. It is all the more chilling because it feels like this possibility could be just around the corner.
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Mindset #4
Ben’s plan works. Everything is perfect. So why does he feel so uncomfortable at times?
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By day, she’s a mild-mannered bureaucrat and Ms. Know-It-All. By night, she’s a dance teacher and RPG player (although admittedly not on the same nights). On the weekends, she may be found judging Magic, playing Guild Wars 2 (badly), or following other creative pursuits. Holy Lack of Copious Free Time, Batman! While she’s always wished she had teleportation as her superpower, she suspects that super-speed would be much more practical because then she’d have time to finish up those steampunk costumes she’s also working on.