UNPAID EST. 243 / PTW
For students

You do the math.
You keep the receipt.

Nobody is going to ask you to feel bad about your phone. We are going to hand you the numbers and a printer.

Join the crew Run your receipt
A single long paper receipt strip unspooling from a school locker into a coil on the floor.
PTW / Prove Them Wrong

Six moves. In PTW, “them” is always a system.

Never a person. Never you. The thing we are proving wrong is a business model, and business models leave paperwork.

01

Spot the feed

Find one mechanism doing a job on you. Name it out loud. Infinite scroll, streak, held notification, autoplay.

02

Rewrite the script

Take the sentence they wrote about you and write a truer one. “I have no self control” becomes “my hours are inventory and they have a price.”

03

Show the receipts

Print the number. Print where it came from, right next to it. A number without a source is a rumor.

04

Learn the game

Read one earnings deck. Read one lawsuit. These are public. They were written for investors and courts, not for you, which is exactly why they are useful.

05

Prove the us

Count what the hours become when you keep them. Pounds grown, meals served, hives kept, hours in the room with each other.

06

PTW showcase

Friday. You present the ledger in your own words to staff, to families, and to the board. Price of admission, $0.00.

The crew / 8 to 12 students

Four jobs. Pick the one you would actually do on a Tuesday.

Diggers
Go into the filings. Earnings decks, SEC documents, attorney general complaints. Pull the number, screenshot the page, log the URL. If you cannot source it, it does not go on the wall.
Shooters
Photograph the walls, the hands, the paper, the room. Phone camera is correct. Grain is correct. Agency polish is wrong. Never shoot an identifiable face without asking first.
Writers
Own the sentences. Short. Active. Open in tension. Kill every hedge. If a line reads like a rule or a lecture, it is dead and you rewrite it.
Builders
Cut, tape, hang, print, and repair. The receipts get taped, not mounted. Visible tape and hand-cut edges are the point. This should look like it was made here.
Cleared copy

Lines you can use on anything, today.

These are approved. Copy them onto a receipt, a sticker, a poster, or a post. Do not soften them.

Open with“They already priced your time.”
The whole argument“You are not the customer. You are the inventory.”
The total“Amount paid to you: $0.00”
Say it early“This is not about your phone.”
Take the blame off“None of this is your fault. All of it is on purpose.”
The ask“We are not asking you to put your phone down. We are asking you to send them the bill.”

Words we do not use, ever: the man, screen time, digital detox, digital wellness, addiction, unplug, balance, mindful. They belong to somebody else's campaign and they all end up blaming you.

Silhouettes of a group gathered outdoors under a string of lights at dusk.
Week four. The us.
Est. 243

143 meant “I love you.” 243 means “we love you.”

Fred Rogers kept his weight at 143 pounds for years because the numbers spelled the sentence he wanted to say. We added a person.

Belonging is the default setting here. It is never earned. You do not have to produce anything to be worth having around. That rule is older than this campaign and it outranks it.

Connection before correction
The relationship comes first, every time, without exception.
Regulate before you educate
Nobody learns anything while their body is still in the alarm.
Responsibility through relationship
People carry weight for people they trust. Not for people who manage them.
Take it with you
Receipts to print and hand outFour receipts plus cut sheets. Print on the cheapest paper you have.PDF Sticker sheetsTwo sheets, cold and warm, thirty six stickers.PDF Posts for your feedEight vertical posts. Use their distribution against them.PDF Every number and where it came fromCheck our arithmetic. Tell us if we got it wrong.The Receipts →