The Myth of the All-Powerful Story: What They Don’t Tell You About Storytelling

The art that makes us who we are. The thing that, supposedly, bridges differences, fosters empathy, and unites civilizations under a shared narrative of progress and understanding.

Nice idea. Too bad it’s not entirely true.

We’re in the golden age of storytelling. TED Talks glorify it. Corporations monetize it. Politicians weaponize it. Your favorite streaming service churns out epic narratives like an overcaffeinated bard on a deadline. But somewhere between The Moth and a brand’s emotional Super Bowl ad, we forgot something: stories don’t just connect—they exclude, manipulate, and distort. And that’s the part no one wants to talk about.

Storytelling: The Cult of Good Vibes

The Cambridge lecture on storytelling hits all the right notes—stories build relationships, shape communication, and help us understand the world. All true. But it also romanticizes storytelling as this grand, benevolent force, failing to mention that narratives don’t just bring people together—they keep them apart.

History isn’t written by the victors. It’s spun by them. Nationalist myths? Built on stories. Corporate branding? One long, well-funded fable. Religious dogma? An anthology of morality tales that, depending on the century, either saved or destroyed civilizations.

We love to believe stories make us more empathetic, but here’s the catch—empathy in storytelling is highly selective. People feel for characters they relate to, not ones they fear. That’s why we have entire media industries dedicated to crafting us vs. them narratives. From colonial-era justifications to modern propaganda machines, storytelling has long been a tool for making sure certain people stay on the right side of history, while others barely make it into the footnotes.

Who Gets to Tell the Story?

A well-told story can change minds. But who controls which stories get told in the first place? The Cambridge lecture conveniently skips over this question.

The media decides which narratives get airtime. Governments decide which histories get taught. Big Tech decides which stories trend. And the most dangerous part? We rarely question it. The single most powerful function of storytelling isn’t connection—it’s control.

Take the news cycle. McCombs and Shaw’s agenda-setting theory explains how media shapes public perception simply by choosing what to highlight. One week, it’s an immigration “crisis.” The next, it’s a celebrity scandal. Both are stories. Both frame reality in specific ways. One just happens to serve a political agenda a little more directly than the other.

And let’s not forget history. Ever notice how colonial atrocities get footnotes while national triumphs get monuments? That’s not an accident. That’s selective storytelling at work. Whole generations grow up believing their country is the protagonist of world history because that’s the version they were told. Meanwhile, the voices of the displaced, the colonized, and the erased remain just that—erased.

The Digital Age: Where Stories Go to Get Hijacked

Social media took storytelling and turned it into a high-speed, algorithm-fueled gladiator pit. The best stories—the ones that go viral—aren’t the most accurate. They’re the most emotionally charged, the most outrageous, the most clickable.

YouTube conspiracy theories? Storytelling. Misinformation campaigns? Also storytelling. The fact that your uncle believes half of what he reads on Facebook? A direct result of how stories are engineered for maximum engagement, not maximum truth.

And the algorithms? They’re not neutral. They amplify the stories that generate the most revenue—whether that’s a heartfelt refugee tale or a sensationalist rant about how the world is secretly run by lizard people. The lecture praises storytelling’s power but doesn’t touch on how, in the digital age, that power has been commodified, distorted, and sold to the highest bidder.

The Ethics of Storytelling (Or Lack Thereof)

Who has the right to tell whose story? It’s a question the Cambridge lecture doesn’t ask, but one that’s become increasingly relevant. Cultural appropriation debates. The ethics of true crime podcasts. The politics of Hollywood casting. Storytelling isn’t just an art—it’s a minefield.

Western media has a long history of co-opting narratives. How many times have Indigenous stories been repackaged by white authors for a global audience? How many times have war stories been told from the perspective of the invaders rather than the invaded? And now, with AI-generated content on the rise, we’re heading into an era where even who tells a story is up for automation.

So, What Now?

None of this means storytelling is bad. It means storytelling is powerful. And like any powerful tool, it depends entirely on how it’s used.

Want to understand the world? Question the stories you consume. Want to change the world? Challenge the stories being told. Because in the end, storytelling isn’t just about who we are. It’s about who gets to decide.