Every day when I get up, rub the dust of regret out of my eyes, and crawl over to look at the Intertube, someone has decided that someone else should never be listened to. Depending on who’s doing the shut-upping, this can range from white, heterosexual men to thots and cucks, but the mechanism is the same. Every day, more people fall into the pit: now white straight women should shut up. Now white gay men. Next it will be Jews (on both sides) and Asians, and finally, a month or two hence, only Ta-Nehisi Coates and anyone who kisses his ass hard enough will count anymore as People With Something to Say. Well, except for the slightly less media-empowered half of the US who are only listening to Tucker Carlson.
And I swear to God, I totally understand why you fruitcakes are doing this.
It ain’t fucking pretty. But the Internet is overpopulated. Anyone can speak. Everybody wants to be important, to be noticed—and above all, everyone wants to be able to make a living writing one viral blog post a week so they can, you know, not live and die in a cubicle, crying. Which is pretty much your other possible fate at this point.
Unfortunately, it is very hard to get noticed when everyone can speak. Especially when most people are idiots, and they post and share idiotic shit. In the giant sea of floating turds and noise, your chances of being heard are pretty low, even if you post a picture of your dangling tits (with balls, your chance drops even lower). And even then, it’s probably one of the comment monkeys who’s going to get his Patreon filled for a well-timed jab at a detested celebrity. Audience members are precious; speakers are cheap. Everyone wants everyone else to join the audience so they can be on the stage.
So thence the impulse to thin the herd a little bit. How about you force some of the audience members into the seats? What if you could whack some of those weeds in your way? And do it genteel-like, too? Hm…
Whether you use shame, guilt, shadowbans, Twitter mobs, or social media snitchin’ to keep people sidelined, it means there’s a better chance for you. Who doesn’t like to see the competition slide back into the seats? Tape their mouths, while you’re at it. So what if you cheated? Being the important one feels good.
White men: That’s half a billion competitors in the world, gone. Silence the political right? Half of America, off the board! Thots? Cucks? Fat chicks? Moderate pussies? Pretty girls? Neckbeards? Porn viewers? Readers and writers of a publication you don’t like? People who don’t like your cooking? White trash? Losers? Winners? Anyone to the right of Mao? They’re part of the problem! STFU!
STFU! Shove a handclap emoji between each letter while you’re at it, so people know you’re damned serious about being expressive. Another prick can be declared an audience member for life? Thank God. The way to fame, fortune, and escaping a life of horrifying toil looks clearer and clearer.
I totally understand why you want to do this, assholes. However, unlike you, I recognize that impulse as a fucking character flaw that I probably shouldn’t indulge.
Then again, I don’t feel I need to cheat, as I’m an actual novelist, who writes (insert nauseating Dave Eggers quote; he totally ruined declaring oneself a genius, alas [is there any more self-protective irony I could slip in here?] {probably not, but who cares in this screaming nightmare?}]); I must only keep jabbering tirelessly till that fact is unearthed from under the nonstop shit-slide of bad litfic about rich kids’ mommies. But a little help from the censorship fairies wouldn’t hurt, now, would it? Whose viewpoint can I declare unimportant today, and how? Can we speed this up a little?
Filthy but true: Deep in our slimiest private souls, we know that most silence-ings, no matter how unjust, amount to no big loss. In fact, for us they’re a gain. Bye, noise, outta my path. In all likelihood, if you are a white male, you do, in fact, have nothing to say. However, if you’re a black female, you likely have nothing to say either. Walk through a public place and smell the body odor. Look at the socks with sandals and the slack mouths, expensive clothing and foul bodies, the unnecessary filth inflicted on the passer-by. Most people are boring, inconsiderate shits, with nothing more to say than “I’d like to mount/eat that,” “Look at me!” and “You bitch.” And yet most of these bores have more self-promotional gall than you or I. These are statistical facts, man. Look ’em up. So fine, tell everyone to shut up. And you can shut up while you’re at it. Make way!
Or we could deal with the Hell on Earth that the Internet noise machine has created—deal with it fairly, straight up, like nice people. The only stake in the game is the way we spend every day of our lives. Who would ever want to cheat?
And I swear to God, I totally understand why you fruitcakes are doing this.
It ain’t fucking pretty. But the Internet is overpopulated. Anyone can speak. Everybody wants to be important, to be noticed—and above all, everyone wants to be able to make a living writing one viral blog post a week so they can, you know, not live and die in a cubicle, crying. Which is pretty much your other possible fate at this point.
Unfortunately, it is very hard to get noticed when everyone can speak. Especially when most people are idiots, and they post and share idiotic shit. In the giant sea of floating turds and noise, your chances of being heard are pretty low, even if you post a picture of your dangling tits (with balls, your chance drops even lower). And even then, it’s probably one of the comment monkeys who’s going to get his Patreon filled for a well-timed jab at a detested celebrity. Audience members are precious; speakers are cheap. Everyone wants everyone else to join the audience so they can be on the stage.
So thence the impulse to thin the herd a little bit. How about you force some of the audience members into the seats? What if you could whack some of those weeds in your way? And do it genteel-like, too? Hm…
Whether you use shame, guilt, shadowbans, Twitter mobs, or social media snitchin’ to keep people sidelined, it means there’s a better chance for you. Who doesn’t like to see the competition slide back into the seats? Tape their mouths, while you’re at it. So what if you cheated? Being the important one feels good.
White men: That’s half a billion competitors in the world, gone. Silence the political right? Half of America, off the board! Thots? Cucks? Fat chicks? Moderate pussies? Pretty girls? Neckbeards? Porn viewers? Readers and writers of a publication you don’t like? People who don’t like your cooking? White trash? Losers? Winners? Anyone to the right of Mao? They’re part of the problem! STFU!
STFU! Shove a handclap emoji between each letter while you’re at it, so people know you’re damned serious about being expressive. Another prick can be declared an audience member for life? Thank God. The way to fame, fortune, and escaping a life of horrifying toil looks clearer and clearer.
I totally understand why you want to do this, assholes. However, unlike you, I recognize that impulse as a fucking character flaw that I probably shouldn’t indulge.
Then again, I don’t feel I need to cheat, as I’m an actual novelist, who writes (insert nauseating Dave Eggers quote; he totally ruined declaring oneself a genius, alas [is there any more self-protective irony I could slip in here?] {probably not, but who cares in this screaming nightmare?}]); I must only keep jabbering tirelessly till that fact is unearthed from under the nonstop shit-slide of bad litfic about rich kids’ mommies. But a little help from the censorship fairies wouldn’t hurt, now, would it? Whose viewpoint can I declare unimportant today, and how? Can we speed this up a little?
Filthy but true: Deep in our slimiest private souls, we know that most silence-ings, no matter how unjust, amount to no big loss. In fact, for us they’re a gain. Bye, noise, outta my path. In all likelihood, if you are a white male, you do, in fact, have nothing to say. However, if you’re a black female, you likely have nothing to say either. Walk through a public place and smell the body odor. Look at the socks with sandals and the slack mouths, expensive clothing and foul bodies, the unnecessary filth inflicted on the passer-by. Most people are boring, inconsiderate shits, with nothing more to say than “I’d like to mount/eat that,” “Look at me!” and “You bitch.” And yet most of these bores have more self-promotional gall than you or I. These are statistical facts, man. Look ’em up. So fine, tell everyone to shut up. And you can shut up while you’re at it. Make way!
Or we could deal with the Hell on Earth that the Internet noise machine has created—deal with it fairly, straight up, like nice people. The only stake in the game is the way we spend every day of our lives. Who would ever want to cheat?
