Outrage
Social Media. Here we go.
Click Bait: Old Video Game Franchise Releasing New Title with Surprising Changes
Blurb: Hot Chick loses three cup sizes and only wears pants.
Comments:
DoucheyJimmy: Unbelievable. How could they fuck with my game? This whole fucking thing has always been about the miniskirt, the heels, the sass! Where’s the fucking sass? SJW fucking suck! Fuck you!
PeopleHeroFour: DoucheyJimmy, are you a troll?
DoucheyJimmy: STFU. Did you read the article? They ruined the game.
ModerateMary: I like what they’ve done. It’s good to see change. Otherwise, why not just play the old games? Everything has to be updated eventually or it gets stale. Give this a chance! It looks great.
DoucheyJimmy: ModerateMary, you’re probably a dyke which is why you don’t mind if an iconic character is turned into one. But the rest of us know that this is wrong. Cancel culture should take care of this but it’s too busy attacking white men for no fucking reason.
PeopleHeroFour: Are you a child? Why would you even go off like this? Have you taken your meds lately? Fucking bitch.
DoucheyJimmy: Where’s all that love the Left side talks about? I thought you were tolerant.
ModerateMary: Just because we’re tolerant doesn’t mean we’ll let people walk all over us.
DimeBagger420: I’m just here for the comments. And the tits.
AssWhole: It’s a game, y’all. Get over yourselves. You don’t like it, don’t buy it.
PeopleHeroFour: I’m sick of people like this guy going off for no reason. Fuck him. This isn’t even a political thread and he’s going off. Seems stupid to go off on nothing! I mean, go off on real shit, bruh. Seriously!
DoucheyJimmy: I’m waiting for someone to bring up cultural appropriation because she’s got a braid. Is that homie territory? Won’t the blackies be upset? Any homeboys wanna sound off? Get ya fowtee out, bruthas and talk about how da honkey be holdin’ ya back!
ModerateMary: Are you fucking kidding?
PeopleHeroFour: Fuck this. I’m blocking that racist prick.
DoucheyJimmy: Buh bye, baby boy. Who’s next? You really think you got this? YOU CAN’T TAKE THE HEAT, MONKEY LOVERS!
AssWhole: Reported.
ModerateMary: Reported as well.
DimeBagger420: Cancelled!
DoucheyJimmy: What the fuck? You guys can’t have a conversation without resorting to ‘reported’? I bet you tattled on people in elementary school. Teacher, teacher! Someone’s being mean to me! Help! You’re all a bunch of second place is okay retards. Fuck you. I don’t got time for losers. And DimeBagger420, GTFO you fag.
KillaPicka: People still say that? It’s 2020, asshole. Why don’t you update? This isn’t 4Chan. You can’t start busting out with slurs and not get attacked.
ModerateMary: Ignore him. He’s a troll. You’re just feeding him.
DoucheyJimmy: Are you a granny, ModerateMary? You play online games with your kiddies? Fucking trolls. LOL. You gotta be kidding me. Get a life, skank. Go outside and pretend you care about your grandchildren before they put your dumb ass in a home. A guy tries to KIR and he gets kicked in the nuts. None of you even play this game. You don’t know anything about gaming. Bet you turn on your Nintendo Switch Hitter and think you’re a baller. You ain’t. You’re a joke. And your kids think so too. I hope your cat dies.
DimeBagger420: Shots fired! You takin’ that shit, ModerateMary?
AngryBirdFlipper: How did a game announcement turn into a Klan rally?
DimeBagger420: DoucheyJimmy’s got opinions, AngryBirdFlipper. And no one can stand to the might of a man on a mission. Never mind the fact that if this nigga said this shit in someone’s face, they’d put him in the ground. Fat basement dweller probably gets hand jobs from his creepy Norma Bates momma then takes out his frustrations online. Don’t you got some lotion to put in a basket, bruh?
DoucheyJimmy: Yep, I’m a momma’s boy. Just crawled off yours, DimeBagger420. Kinda like fucking a rotten peach though. Wet but sloppy.
AngryBirdFlipper: Annnnnnd blocked.
ModerateMary: How is this even allowed?? I’m reporting you again, you freak! This is insanity! You should be ashamed of yourself. I’m so done!
DoucheyJimmy: That’s what she said.
DimeBagger420: What’s that even mean, G?
DoucheyJimmy: You know.
KillaPicka: He’s going to keep going until you guys stop.
DoucheyJimmy: No one can stop the pain, bro. No one can stop THIS.
ModerateMary: Blocked. Fuck you.
DoucheyJimmy: Bitch got a mouth on her. I guess the Left is all about hypocrisy.
KillaPicka: Blocked.
DimeBagger420: Blocked. Peace!
Andrea read me the comments. She found most of them funny. Not because the topics were humorous but because someone actually wrote them. Insane comment threads have become comedy because we can’t believe a person has the nerve to put that out there for all to see.
And while yes, I suppose you can delete a comment, it’s out there somewhere. On a hard drive. In the cloud. Available somehow. Especially in email. Andrea read me some of those that blew my mind. People threatening other people. Sometimes going so far as to say they were going to kill them. Like that would NEVER come back to haunt them.
“Get this,” Andrea said, “the other day, I got a dick pic sent to me through Facebook messenger.”
“I’m honestly confused by that,” I replied, “what’s the goal? I mean...what is this, the deli counter? Why yes, I’ll take that white sausage in my cahootie today. Looks like a fine specimen, perfect amount of veins with a cute little dark spot on the tip. What response do they want?”
“This guy at school had an explanation,” Andrea said. “He told me that guys use them for fishing.”
“Is this like a guy asking every woman he sees at a mall to have sex with him?”
“Kind of, I guess. He said if a woman is like ‘whoa, that’s cool’, then they start a conversation.”
“Cock Ice Breaker?”
“Punk band,” Andrea said. “But that’s one way, yes.”
“So someone actually thought that sending a picture of their private bits would make for a fantastic way to break the ice with a woman?” I paused in thought. “I guess it gets the disappointment phase over with early.”
“I’d be worried about catfishing cocks.”
“Punk band,” I said. “And is that where they get a picture off the internet? Some porn star thing?”
“Yep.”
“Wouldn’t that be the same thing as using a copyrighted picture of Mickey Mouse to endorse your product?”
“That would have to be one icockic cock.”
“I can’t believe you just said that.” I rubbed my eyes. “Anyway, we still don’t know why douche bags send dick pics but you were telling me a story before we went off on that tangent.”
“Yeah, so I get this random picture through messenger. Some guy I added from a party we attended literally six months ago. My phone beeps, I take a look and there it is. Fully erect. Ready to go.”
“So what did you do?”
“You can’t play with people,” Andrea replied. “Like...I couldn’t say something snarky like sweet, let’s fuck then only kidding. The only humor you can really use is kind of obvious. You know the stuff. That kinda looks like a penis, only smaller. Or why’d your dad make you do that? Then there’s the SUPER obvious outrage.”
“Something like...WTF, how could you?”
“Right.”
I shook my head. “Never works.”
“Right again. I could just block him and move on.”
“Valid choice. And probably the right one. What did your horrible comments thread say? Don’t feed the troll?”
“I felt like I’d be angry at myself for not saying something.”
“So what the fuck did you say? Christ, cut to the chase.”
“Conversation was simple.”
Andrea: There are lots of ways I could react to this. I’ll try cool. Why did you send me this?
Bro: Hey, how’s it going? You like what you see?
Andrea: Please explain the unsolicited dick pic and tell me how I won the Cock Lottery?
Bro: I’m looking for some no strings attached fun. You gotta see the goods up front, right?
Andrea: So this is like sexual cold calling?
Bro: Huh?
Andrea: Like calling up people out of the phone book to sell them something. You’re just shooting in the dark.
Bro: I wanna be shooting in the dark ;).
Andrea: Wow. So, just to sum up, you sent me a picture of your penis in hopes that I would want to have sex with you?
Bro: And it worked, right?
Andrea: From what I see, I’m not sure where you’re confidence is coming from.
Bro: I’m a master with it.
Andrea: I don’t really go in for used goods.
Bro: What?
Andrea: Sounds like you have more miles than I’m willing to commit to.
Bro: I heard you needed some action.
Andrea: Please tell me who gave you this insight into my sexual needs.
Bro: You know, people.
Andrea: That’s pretty broad. Are you suggesting a committee criticized my sexual needs and passed the findings on to you? Were there graphs at least? Tell me they gave you a popup book.
Bro: You’re kinda weird.
Andrea: Says the man who took a picture of their PENIS and sent it to a girl they don’t even know!
Bro: Are you a lessie?
Andrea: Is that another name for the Loch Ness Monster?
Bro: Do you like girls?
Andrea: I have lots of friends who are girls.
Bro: You don’t sleep with men, right? You’re a dyke?
Andrea: I’ve never really had any serious work obstructing water, no. Let me get this straight, because I am not asking you to come over to my room to have sex right now after the harassment of seeing your penis, you think I must be gay?
Bro: Aren’t you?
Andrea: Let me ask you something. Have you been tested for a learning disability? Were you hit in the head? Are you writing me from the hospital right now?
Bro: I think I’m done talking to you.
Andrea: Bless your heart.
“So you just wasted your time messing with him,” I said. “And you slipped in some of the obvious ones.”
“You can’t really help it. I mean, there’s a reason a few of them are classics.” Andrea shrugged. “Seriously, what would you have done?”
“I don’t have time for it. I just block and move on.”
“How many times has it happened to you?”
“I came out of the closet in the tenth grade. I got dick pics for six months after. They were ‘helping’ me by showing off what I was missing. Got one guy expelled. He sent me thirty-eight shots of his dick and one of them with cum oozing out. Pretty foul. What’s the saddest part of what I just said?”
“The fact it took so many before he got in trouble?”
“Bingo. I told the principal after the third one. Showed him too. He promised to have a talk with the lad. Fucking asshole. This is what I was talking about before. If you’re at all different, the rules don’t protect you. Not the laws either. Violent crime has to happen before you get serious justice. If you’re not dead or raped, you’re reporting to a brick wall.”
“What did he say when he saw the cum shot?”
“He finally got appalled. I think he probably told the kid to stop doing it and the fact I reported so many more plus the money shot pushed him over the edge. Because while the principal wouldn’t have pissed on me if I caught on fire, he was in charge. And by God if someone disobeyed him, there was hell to pay.”
“So the guy didn’t get in trouble because he sent that to you. He got busted because he defied the orders of the principal.”
“Yep. Whatever. Taught me a lesson. Doesn’t matter how much you get outraged by anything. You could be justified or not. It can be important like you’re pissed off people have to wait six hours to vote or something stupid like calling your internet provider took two hours with no resolution. The only person it ends up hurting is you.”
“I mean, I guess...”
“You think otherwise?”
“You can always complain.”
“But who really cares?” I asked. “Seriously, say you take it up with I dunno...the superintendent of the school district. He’s got shit to do. And when you show up with this story about how the principal took a long time, you aren’t making a friend. You’re snitching someone out that causes a stir. No one likes a stir. And no one wants to act on them.
“Think about all those priests who fucked children. I mean, never mind the fact they’re supposed to be celibate. These guys committed a crime! And the church covered it up. And here’s my point about stirs. The people who follow that religion still give them fucking money and continue to go to their churches.
“While they might act appalled about it, or even say that it’s disgusting, their actions say otherwise. They don’t care. Despite their good works, charity bullshit, honor thy neighbor lies, they allowed those children to be raped without real consequences. If that’s the price you have to pay for salvation, let me burn in fucking hell.”
“Every organization has stuff like that. Sports teams?”
“Don’t get me started on those assholes. Dog fighting, spousal abuse, murder, drunk driving...but they’re heroes. Fucking role models. What a God damn laugh. You see that show The Boys? I think they were using superheroes as an analogy for the rich and powerful. Celebrities in the spotlight who can do no wrong.”
“Probably.” Andrea shrugged. “This seems pretty messed up. What exactly can anyone do about it?”
“Nothing. It’s pointless to try. So many things have to change before any of this will be addressed properly. You can’t go at it one at a time. That doesn’t work. The whole system needs to be changed from the ground up. Fundamentally, society is flawed. Nudging it back to something resembling tolerance or decency requires effort no one’s willing to put in.”
“So what? We just...suffer?”
“We are suffering. Everyone is who isn’t at the top. We just find ways to make the suffering bearable. Whether that be binge watch a show on Netflix, play a video game, get old school and read a book. Maybe even have kids to relinquish the responsibility of achieving a dream. Whatever you do, it’s just anesthesia to make the pain of living tolerable.”
“You are really dark sometimes, you know that?”
“I’ve never been naive enough to be idealistic. But once, for a fleeting moment, I thought the world might not be so bad. That there was more hope than despair.”
“When was that?”
“The minute my best friend said Letty, we’ve known each other our entire lives. You can tell me anything. I swear to you, it won’t change anything at all. Come on. If you can’t tell me, who can you tell?”
“Uh oh.”
I smiled. “So you know where that’s going?”
“Probably, yeah.”
“She convinced me. And once I told her, she was wrong. It changed everything. And this big secret burst inside her so she told everyone else.” I shrugged. “And that’s when I knew trust was a commodity no one could cling to. That and the fact another of our friends got date raped at sixteen by her senior boyfriend in the back of his car.”
“Jesus Christ, did you go to school in the Heathers universe?”
“Pretty much.”
“So you’re telling me that one girl in one moment made you this cynical?”
“Of course not. That moment gave me vision. I started picking away at the flaking paint that covered the dirty underbelly of society. The deeper I went, the angrier I got. The worst thing that can happen to a person today is waking up to how fucked up the world is around us. Then when you think of ways to fix it, you smell fresh air. Only to realize they’re all impossible.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because the incentive to change doesn’t exist. That guy you talked about who sent the dick pic? You just chalked you up to a bitchy lesbian then moved on to the next lucky gal on his friend’s list. The picture of that guy’s dick has been around way more than he ever has been. No matter how snarky the women are, he’ll keep at it.”
“You’ve just said that my dick pic guy is an analogy for society trundling toward ruin because it’s too stubborn to change.”
“Doubt I’m that clever, but I appreciate you throwing me a bone.”
“I can text you one.”
“Get out.”
Andrea smiled.
Click Bait: Old Video Game Franchise Releasing New Title with Surprising Changes
Blurb: Hot Chick loses three cup sizes and only wears pants.
Comments:
DoucheyJimmy: Unbelievable. How could they fuck with my game? This whole fucking thing has always been about the miniskirt, the heels, the sass! Where’s the fucking sass? SJW fucking suck! Fuck you!
PeopleHeroFour: DoucheyJimmy, are you a troll?
DoucheyJimmy: STFU. Did you read the article? They ruined the game.
ModerateMary: I like what they’ve done. It’s good to see change. Otherwise, why not just play the old games? Everything has to be updated eventually or it gets stale. Give this a chance! It looks great.
DoucheyJimmy: ModerateMary, you’re probably a dyke which is why you don’t mind if an iconic character is turned into one. But the rest of us know that this is wrong. Cancel culture should take care of this but it’s too busy attacking white men for no fucking reason.
PeopleHeroFour: Are you a child? Why would you even go off like this? Have you taken your meds lately? Fucking bitch.
DoucheyJimmy: Where’s all that love the Left side talks about? I thought you were tolerant.
ModerateMary: Just because we’re tolerant doesn’t mean we’ll let people walk all over us.
DimeBagger420: I’m just here for the comments. And the tits.
AssWhole: It’s a game, y’all. Get over yourselves. You don’t like it, don’t buy it.
PeopleHeroFour: I’m sick of people like this guy going off for no reason. Fuck him. This isn’t even a political thread and he’s going off. Seems stupid to go off on nothing! I mean, go off on real shit, bruh. Seriously!
DoucheyJimmy: I’m waiting for someone to bring up cultural appropriation because she’s got a braid. Is that homie territory? Won’t the blackies be upset? Any homeboys wanna sound off? Get ya fowtee out, bruthas and talk about how da honkey be holdin’ ya back!
ModerateMary: Are you fucking kidding?
PeopleHeroFour: Fuck this. I’m blocking that racist prick.
DoucheyJimmy: Buh bye, baby boy. Who’s next? You really think you got this? YOU CAN’T TAKE THE HEAT, MONKEY LOVERS!
AssWhole: Reported.
ModerateMary: Reported as well.
DimeBagger420: Cancelled!
DoucheyJimmy: What the fuck? You guys can’t have a conversation without resorting to ‘reported’? I bet you tattled on people in elementary school. Teacher, teacher! Someone’s being mean to me! Help! You’re all a bunch of second place is okay retards. Fuck you. I don’t got time for losers. And DimeBagger420, GTFO you fag.
KillaPicka: People still say that? It’s 2020, asshole. Why don’t you update? This isn’t 4Chan. You can’t start busting out with slurs and not get attacked.
ModerateMary: Ignore him. He’s a troll. You’re just feeding him.
DoucheyJimmy: Are you a granny, ModerateMary? You play online games with your kiddies? Fucking trolls. LOL. You gotta be kidding me. Get a life, skank. Go outside and pretend you care about your grandchildren before they put your dumb ass in a home. A guy tries to KIR and he gets kicked in the nuts. None of you even play this game. You don’t know anything about gaming. Bet you turn on your Nintendo Switch Hitter and think you’re a baller. You ain’t. You’re a joke. And your kids think so too. I hope your cat dies.
DimeBagger420: Shots fired! You takin’ that shit, ModerateMary?
AngryBirdFlipper: How did a game announcement turn into a Klan rally?
DimeBagger420: DoucheyJimmy’s got opinions, AngryBirdFlipper. And no one can stand to the might of a man on a mission. Never mind the fact that if this nigga said this shit in someone’s face, they’d put him in the ground. Fat basement dweller probably gets hand jobs from his creepy Norma Bates momma then takes out his frustrations online. Don’t you got some lotion to put in a basket, bruh?
DoucheyJimmy: Yep, I’m a momma’s boy. Just crawled off yours, DimeBagger420. Kinda like fucking a rotten peach though. Wet but sloppy.
AngryBirdFlipper: Annnnnnd blocked.
ModerateMary: How is this even allowed?? I’m reporting you again, you freak! This is insanity! You should be ashamed of yourself. I’m so done!
DoucheyJimmy: That’s what she said.
DimeBagger420: What’s that even mean, G?
DoucheyJimmy: You know.
KillaPicka: He’s going to keep going until you guys stop.
DoucheyJimmy: No one can stop the pain, bro. No one can stop THIS.
ModerateMary: Blocked. Fuck you.
DoucheyJimmy: Bitch got a mouth on her. I guess the Left is all about hypocrisy.
KillaPicka: Blocked.
DimeBagger420: Blocked. Peace!
Andrea read me the comments. She found most of them funny. Not because the topics were humorous but because someone actually wrote them. Insane comment threads have become comedy because we can’t believe a person has the nerve to put that out there for all to see.
And while yes, I suppose you can delete a comment, it’s out there somewhere. On a hard drive. In the cloud. Available somehow. Especially in email. Andrea read me some of those that blew my mind. People threatening other people. Sometimes going so far as to say they were going to kill them. Like that would NEVER come back to haunt them.
“Get this,” Andrea said, “the other day, I got a dick pic sent to me through Facebook messenger.”
“I’m honestly confused by that,” I replied, “what’s the goal? I mean...what is this, the deli counter? Why yes, I’ll take that white sausage in my cahootie today. Looks like a fine specimen, perfect amount of veins with a cute little dark spot on the tip. What response do they want?”
“This guy at school had an explanation,” Andrea said. “He told me that guys use them for fishing.”
“Is this like a guy asking every woman he sees at a mall to have sex with him?”
“Kind of, I guess. He said if a woman is like ‘whoa, that’s cool’, then they start a conversation.”
“Cock Ice Breaker?”
“Punk band,” Andrea said. “But that’s one way, yes.”
“So someone actually thought that sending a picture of their private bits would make for a fantastic way to break the ice with a woman?” I paused in thought. “I guess it gets the disappointment phase over with early.”
“I’d be worried about catfishing cocks.”
“Punk band,” I said. “And is that where they get a picture off the internet? Some porn star thing?”
“Yep.”
“Wouldn’t that be the same thing as using a copyrighted picture of Mickey Mouse to endorse your product?”
“That would have to be one icockic cock.”
“I can’t believe you just said that.” I rubbed my eyes. “Anyway, we still don’t know why douche bags send dick pics but you were telling me a story before we went off on that tangent.”
“Yeah, so I get this random picture through messenger. Some guy I added from a party we attended literally six months ago. My phone beeps, I take a look and there it is. Fully erect. Ready to go.”
“So what did you do?”
“You can’t play with people,” Andrea replied. “Like...I couldn’t say something snarky like sweet, let’s fuck then only kidding. The only humor you can really use is kind of obvious. You know the stuff. That kinda looks like a penis, only smaller. Or why’d your dad make you do that? Then there’s the SUPER obvious outrage.”
“Something like...WTF, how could you?”
“Right.”
I shook my head. “Never works.”
“Right again. I could just block him and move on.”
“Valid choice. And probably the right one. What did your horrible comments thread say? Don’t feed the troll?”
“I felt like I’d be angry at myself for not saying something.”
“So what the fuck did you say? Christ, cut to the chase.”
“Conversation was simple.”
Andrea: There are lots of ways I could react to this. I’ll try cool. Why did you send me this?
Bro: Hey, how’s it going? You like what you see?
Andrea: Please explain the unsolicited dick pic and tell me how I won the Cock Lottery?
Bro: I’m looking for some no strings attached fun. You gotta see the goods up front, right?
Andrea: So this is like sexual cold calling?
Bro: Huh?
Andrea: Like calling up people out of the phone book to sell them something. You’re just shooting in the dark.
Bro: I wanna be shooting in the dark ;).
Andrea: Wow. So, just to sum up, you sent me a picture of your penis in hopes that I would want to have sex with you?
Bro: And it worked, right?
Andrea: From what I see, I’m not sure where you’re confidence is coming from.
Bro: I’m a master with it.
Andrea: I don’t really go in for used goods.
Bro: What?
Andrea: Sounds like you have more miles than I’m willing to commit to.
Bro: I heard you needed some action.
Andrea: Please tell me who gave you this insight into my sexual needs.
Bro: You know, people.
Andrea: That’s pretty broad. Are you suggesting a committee criticized my sexual needs and passed the findings on to you? Were there graphs at least? Tell me they gave you a popup book.
Bro: You’re kinda weird.
Andrea: Says the man who took a picture of their PENIS and sent it to a girl they don’t even know!
Bro: Are you a lessie?
Andrea: Is that another name for the Loch Ness Monster?
Bro: Do you like girls?
Andrea: I have lots of friends who are girls.
Bro: You don’t sleep with men, right? You’re a dyke?
Andrea: I’ve never really had any serious work obstructing water, no. Let me get this straight, because I am not asking you to come over to my room to have sex right now after the harassment of seeing your penis, you think I must be gay?
Bro: Aren’t you?
Andrea: Let me ask you something. Have you been tested for a learning disability? Were you hit in the head? Are you writing me from the hospital right now?
Bro: I think I’m done talking to you.
Andrea: Bless your heart.
“So you just wasted your time messing with him,” I said. “And you slipped in some of the obvious ones.”
“You can’t really help it. I mean, there’s a reason a few of them are classics.” Andrea shrugged. “Seriously, what would you have done?”
“I don’t have time for it. I just block and move on.”
“How many times has it happened to you?”
“I came out of the closet in the tenth grade. I got dick pics for six months after. They were ‘helping’ me by showing off what I was missing. Got one guy expelled. He sent me thirty-eight shots of his dick and one of them with cum oozing out. Pretty foul. What’s the saddest part of what I just said?”
“The fact it took so many before he got in trouble?”
“Bingo. I told the principal after the third one. Showed him too. He promised to have a talk with the lad. Fucking asshole. This is what I was talking about before. If you’re at all different, the rules don’t protect you. Not the laws either. Violent crime has to happen before you get serious justice. If you’re not dead or raped, you’re reporting to a brick wall.”
“What did he say when he saw the cum shot?”
“He finally got appalled. I think he probably told the kid to stop doing it and the fact I reported so many more plus the money shot pushed him over the edge. Because while the principal wouldn’t have pissed on me if I caught on fire, he was in charge. And by God if someone disobeyed him, there was hell to pay.”
“So the guy didn’t get in trouble because he sent that to you. He got busted because he defied the orders of the principal.”
“Yep. Whatever. Taught me a lesson. Doesn’t matter how much you get outraged by anything. You could be justified or not. It can be important like you’re pissed off people have to wait six hours to vote or something stupid like calling your internet provider took two hours with no resolution. The only person it ends up hurting is you.”
“I mean, I guess...”
“You think otherwise?”
“You can always complain.”
“But who really cares?” I asked. “Seriously, say you take it up with I dunno...the superintendent of the school district. He’s got shit to do. And when you show up with this story about how the principal took a long time, you aren’t making a friend. You’re snitching someone out that causes a stir. No one likes a stir. And no one wants to act on them.
“Think about all those priests who fucked children. I mean, never mind the fact they’re supposed to be celibate. These guys committed a crime! And the church covered it up. And here’s my point about stirs. The people who follow that religion still give them fucking money and continue to go to their churches.
“While they might act appalled about it, or even say that it’s disgusting, their actions say otherwise. They don’t care. Despite their good works, charity bullshit, honor thy neighbor lies, they allowed those children to be raped without real consequences. If that’s the price you have to pay for salvation, let me burn in fucking hell.”
“Every organization has stuff like that. Sports teams?”
“Don’t get me started on those assholes. Dog fighting, spousal abuse, murder, drunk driving...but they’re heroes. Fucking role models. What a God damn laugh. You see that show The Boys? I think they were using superheroes as an analogy for the rich and powerful. Celebrities in the spotlight who can do no wrong.”
“Probably.” Andrea shrugged. “This seems pretty messed up. What exactly can anyone do about it?”
“Nothing. It’s pointless to try. So many things have to change before any of this will be addressed properly. You can’t go at it one at a time. That doesn’t work. The whole system needs to be changed from the ground up. Fundamentally, society is flawed. Nudging it back to something resembling tolerance or decency requires effort no one’s willing to put in.”
“So what? We just...suffer?”
“We are suffering. Everyone is who isn’t at the top. We just find ways to make the suffering bearable. Whether that be binge watch a show on Netflix, play a video game, get old school and read a book. Maybe even have kids to relinquish the responsibility of achieving a dream. Whatever you do, it’s just anesthesia to make the pain of living tolerable.”
“You are really dark sometimes, you know that?”
“I’ve never been naive enough to be idealistic. But once, for a fleeting moment, I thought the world might not be so bad. That there was more hope than despair.”
“When was that?”
“The minute my best friend said Letty, we’ve known each other our entire lives. You can tell me anything. I swear to you, it won’t change anything at all. Come on. If you can’t tell me, who can you tell?”
“Uh oh.”
I smiled. “So you know where that’s going?”
“Probably, yeah.”
“She convinced me. And once I told her, she was wrong. It changed everything. And this big secret burst inside her so she told everyone else.” I shrugged. “And that’s when I knew trust was a commodity no one could cling to. That and the fact another of our friends got date raped at sixteen by her senior boyfriend in the back of his car.”
“Jesus Christ, did you go to school in the Heathers universe?”
“Pretty much.”
“So you’re telling me that one girl in one moment made you this cynical?”
“Of course not. That moment gave me vision. I started picking away at the flaking paint that covered the dirty underbelly of society. The deeper I went, the angrier I got. The worst thing that can happen to a person today is waking up to how fucked up the world is around us. Then when you think of ways to fix it, you smell fresh air. Only to realize they’re all impossible.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because the incentive to change doesn’t exist. That guy you talked about who sent the dick pic? You just chalked you up to a bitchy lesbian then moved on to the next lucky gal on his friend’s list. The picture of that guy’s dick has been around way more than he ever has been. No matter how snarky the women are, he’ll keep at it.”
“You’ve just said that my dick pic guy is an analogy for society trundling toward ruin because it’s too stubborn to change.”
“Doubt I’m that clever, but I appreciate you throwing me a bone.”
“I can text you one.”
“Get out.”
Andrea smiled.