Summary
‘Bespoke realities’ describes a world in which people’s pictures of reality are so tailored to their own experience that they can’t agree even on matters of fact. The phrase comes from a June 2025 episode of the podcast Planet: Critical, where host Rachel Donald uses it to sum up the argument of Damien Williams, who teaches philosophy and data science. In her words, people “cannot even come to a mutual understanding of the parts that are objective”.
Behind it is a view of language as how people build a shared reality together. When that breaks down, more information doesn’t bring agreement, and other people’s realities start to feel threatening.
Rationale
A phrase we’d use with a caveat. ‘Bespoke’ suggests a private reality each; we’re more interested in what’s still shared beneath the disagreement – dispositions that work “like a collective, cultural habit”.