🎤 Act 1: The Post That Launched a Thousand Misconceptions

A well-meaning influencer, let’s call him Paul Barnhurst for convenience, posts:

“With Python, Power Query, Lambdas, and Office Scripts, is VBA now obsolete?”

Cue 874 likes, 149 emojis, and exactly 1 person—me—saying:

“Actually, VBA is the only tool that can directly manipulate Excel’s COM object model, which is foundational for enterprise client-server spreadsheet architecture.”

Response?

Crickets. Or worse…

Someone replies, “That’s an interesting exception.”

An exception?

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🧠 Act 2: 1% of Comments vs. 100% of Reality

Imagine you’re in a doctor’s conference and someone says, “The heart is important, but have you seen how great elbows are these days?”

That’s what calling enterprise Excel solutions “an exception” feels like.

I point out that in any real-world enterprise setting, 100% of architecture is grounded in client-server models. Excel’s native ability to operate as a front-end to a centralized database? That’s not an exception—it’s the only reason enterprise Excel works.

But because only 1% of comments mention this, it must be weird.

Social media logic:

“If no one else says it, it can’t be true.”

Real-world logic:

“If no one else knows it, we have a serious training problem.”

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🤖 Act 3: Is This… AI?

Now here’s where things get juicy.

My comment thread reads like it was written by a thinking machine. Balanced rebuttals. Nuanced architecture discussion. Data modeling logic. A link to an actual working annual budget solution.

Naturally, people assume AI wrote it.

Which is hilarious, because if an AI did write that reply—then fantastic! I’ve trained a digital agent to outthink most of LinkedIn.

And yet…

When people say, “But this doesn’t sound like everyone else,” they mean:
“This sounds correct but makes me uncomfortable.”

So let me get this straight. I either:

• Wrote it myself and I’m too clever.
• Or trained an AI to write it, in which case… I’m still too clever.

Either way, I win.

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🪦 Act 4: VBA’s Repeated Funerals (Now with Complimentary Confetti)

So let’s recap.

People think VBA is dead.
Because other people say it’s dead.
Because new shiny things exist.
Even though those things don’t do what VBA does.
And when shown real-world evidence, they say:
“That’s an outlier.”
Because no one else mentioned it.
Because they don’t know how it works.
Because they were taught Excel by… YouTubers.

It’s like saying:

“We don’t use electricity anymore. I read it on TikTok.”

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🥁 Act 5: Bring Your Models, Boys

To all those evangelists of Excel’s glorious new post-VBA era, I say this:

Show me.

Show me your multi-tab, multi-user, department-linked, server-integrated, rule-audited, traceable budgeting model. Built entirely with Power Query and Office Scripts.

(Yes, that awkward silence you’re hearing right now? That’s VBA watching from the corner, sipping coffee and smirking.)

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🎬 Curtain Call

So, next time someone says, “VBA is obsolete,” just smile.

Smile like you’ve written an AI agent that can dismantle arguments in a LinkedIn thread better than its original poster.

Smile like someone who knows that the real world still runs on Excel.

Not the Excel of YouTube.
The Excel of enterprise.

The Excel of COM objects, data flows, reconciliation logic, and 3 a.m. sanity-saving automation.

The Excel where VBA isn’t a zombie—it’s the engine.

So stop trying to bury it.
It keeps rising anyway.

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Postscript:
If this was AI-generated, then congratulations to the AI.
If it wasn’t, then I’m even scarier.

Either way, LinkedIn, I’ll see you in the next virtual debate.