Why Does Severance Feel Uncomfortably Familiar?
In the middle of a TikTok doom scroll, I was starting to become desensitized to the content on my screen. My eyes were glossed over as I scrolled, and I wasn’t paying much attention until I came across a strange video. In the middle of Grand Central Station in New York stood a glass box full of office workers. They were dutifully working and typing away on vintage-looking computers, clunky relics. At first glance, it looked like an art installation, a human fishbowl of corporate life. I recognized the actor Adam Scott, and after further research (in the comments), I realized it was a marketing stunt for Severance, a science fiction, psychological thriller TV series. Commuters on the way to their real offices had briefly paused to watch actors portray trapped office workers, a reflection of the ‘daily grind’. Here we all were, voluntarily observing what so many of us basically experience every day.
The marketing stunt was undeniably clever, and it went viral online. Now, severance seems to be all everyone’s talking about. How does this promotional spectacle strike such a chord that it can stop a busy train station in its tracks? Why does this show resonate so deeply with us?
For those of you who haven’t watched it, in the world of Severance, a company called Lumon Industries offers employees a chance at the ultimate work-life balance: a brain procedure that splits your consciousness, severing work and personal memories. Office workers in a specific branch of Lumon (Macrodata Refinement) start to uncover the truth behind this company and job. After undergoing “severance,” your working self (innie) knows nothing of your outside life, and your personal self (outie) remembers nothing about the drudgery of your workday. Initially, I thought this sounded like a dream. No work stress at home, no personal baggage at work! But the show reveals the sinister catch: this separation traps the innies in a never-ending workday, living in a fluorescent purgatory of menial tasks, with no escape or awareness of anything outside the office.
The Compartmentalized Self
Freedom from worry is just an illusion. It's a disturbing metaphor for how work can consume us. The supposed perfect work-life balance becomes an extreme form of compartmentalization, one that severs not just memories but one’s very identity in two. As Season 1 of the show unfolds, we see just how nightmarish this is: Lumon’s severed employees are corporate machines in human form, ever obedient, never off-duty. Watching the show, I recognized parts of my own experience. No, I haven’t undergone sci-fi brain surgery–but have I ever put on a professional persona at work that feels like a toned-down, sanitized version of myself? Absolutely.
In many modern workplaces, we’re implicitly asked to separate our work self from our home self. Leave your personal problems at the door. Be a team player. Stay positive. Sound familiar? We compartmentalize to cope: adopting that cheery customer service voice or that stoic, I have it all together attitude, in front of colleagues. Severance simply takes this common behavior and gives it a sci-fi twist: what if that split were complete and physical? The show exaggerates it to make a point: people cannot completely separate work and life. If we attempt to become emotionless, we lose the very things that make us human and actually good at our jobs in the first place.
In the aftermath of COVID-19, as remote work blurred the lines between home and office, many of us have felt the temptation of separation. Severance came along at just the right time, striking a nerve and asking us a question: How much of yourself are you willing to give to your job? In real life, we obviously can’t split our minds in two, but we do give pieces of ourselves away: extra hours, mental energy on weekends, and our passions put on hold, in exchange for paychecks or professional ‘success’. The show simply makes that transaction literal and grotesque, so we can’t ignore it. By watching Mark S. and his colleagues wander the white halls of Lumon, half-asleep during their own humanity, we’re forced to confront the ways we might be sleepwalking through our own workdays. Do we also compartmentalize our souls in the name of productivity?
Waffle Parties: Absurdity as Corporate Policy
Severance takes the little absurdities of corporate culture and dials them up to eleven. Lumon’s bizarre employee perks (finger traps, melon bars, waffle and dance parties), with its fake joviality, brilliantly parody performative morale-building, echoing real-world gimmicks. Companies try to placate unhappy employees with shallow perks instead of substantive improvements. Free drinks if you all work late! Casual Fridays! Staff meals… for 5 euros! These perks can be fun, sure, but they are humorously shallow attempts to mask deeper organizational problems.
Personally, I thrive when recognition comes through action. When I can see and feel my work making a tangible difference and receive sincere appreciation for it. Not when I’m chasing the next token reward. Lumon’s employees spend their days mindlessly sorting numbers into digital bins with no clear purpose, perfectly capturing the disconnect many modern workers feel today. Genuine fulfillment comes from contributing to something meaningful, not from trivial incentives.
Even the show's promotional content, such as Lumon’s ironic fictional LinkedIn page, cleverly blurs reality and fiction. We’ve all seen those cringey LinkedIn posts from companies or professionals desperately trying to appear humane and inspiring, while everyone internally knows morale is low. It’s indistinguishable from the tone of real posts and corporate messaging.
Who Are We at Work?
Beneath its satire, Severance resonates deeply with me, raising profound questions about identity and autonomy that reflect my own work experiences. Watching the show, I found myself returning to this unsettling thought: what exactly is our 'work self,' and how distinct is it from our true selves? Lumon’s innies, treated as mere extensions of the company, dramatize a fear I’ve often felt in subtle ways: being valued only for output and not as a person.
The ethical implications become starkly clear as innies begin to awaken to their reality, prompting chilling reflections on labor rights and workplace culture. It forces us to consider how far one might go to surrender autonomy for a paycheck and how far a company would go to take it. I find myself thinking about how much autonomy I yield in my own workplace. While no one is controlling my brain, there are unspoken expectations in many jobs: be reachable at all hours, respond to that late email, and accept the new project even if you’re at capacity.
We become injured by these little daily dystopias, and Severance jolts us awake to them. Do I prioritize myself or my work self? When I watch Helly’s innie rebel against her conditions (to the point of risking her life), I’m rooting for her as if I were cheering on a part of myself, the part that refuses to be numbed into submission. It reminds me of times I’ve pushed back at work, even in small ways, like asserting boundaries or voicing a dissenting opinion, and how vital that is to maintain one’s selfhood.
Creating a More Human Workplace
After binge-watching Severance, it felt like my work life had been magnified and reflected back to me with a darkly comedic sheen. The symbolism is pretty obvious, but I wonder just how close it is to reality. Having just graduated after spending most of my existence studying, the next step for me, unfortunately, is to find a job. Grow up and swallow the fact that I’ll be working for the rest of my life. Severance visualizes this feeling.
Watching the series forced me to confront workplace hypocrisies and flaws I typically accept without question. Have I prioritized metrics at the expense of genuine human connection? Are there Lumon-like practices hidden in my workplace? Rather than severing our personal and professional lives, we should pursue integration, allowing our authentic selves to thrive at work. Workplaces should enhance our humanity, not compartmentalize it. If it is ignored, we risk slipping into this dystopia.
My biggest takeaway from Severance? I’ll do my best to carry both my innie and my outie with me from now on.
