I’ll begin with a public service announcement.
Boxing day was originally a day where the rich gave a box of presents to their servants and allowed them to take a day off and bring those gifts home to their families.
Boxing day is not the one day a year where a person is supposed to surprise their wife with a tap to the genital area. And here I thought I’d discovered the real meaning and spirit of December 26th.
So, triggered.
I think that somewhere in Moscow there is a den of Dmitri’s. All of them are clad in Adidas track suits and they sit in front of computers all day, drinking vodka and posting trigger bait on Facebook. That’s their job and they get paid to misinform and agitate. But I can’t help but wonder from time to time if the Dmitri den denizens understood just how easy that job was going to be?
Probably not.
I also wonder if the Dmitri’s realized that they were unleashing an avalanche of amateurs who fervently took up the trigger torch and have almost made the Dmitri’s redundant.
I think even Vlad was shocked by how easily the West, and America in particular wasn’t just susceptible to hateful disinformation, but open armed welcoming of a tool to express the venom they were being forced to suppress. I’m certain that in the beginning, the Dmitri’s felt that they had to come up with a story that had a kernel of truth buried in the basket of bullshit. After a while though, the Dmitri’s realized that truth wasn’t a necessary component of their work. Who knew that accuracy wasn’t a requirement to triggering the easily triggered?
Maybe Vlad, the Czar of the Dmitri’s knew.
If a person thinks about it though, we should have realized just how willing people are to accept fabrications, if accepting those falsehoods serves a purpose that we find desirable.
Lies are especially useful if what we desire is an excuse to behave shamefully.
History abounds with examples of the use of fiction and slander that we’ve used as excuses to act like dicks. Sometimes we get a little carried away and become full scale, lynch mob, concentration camp, genocidal dicks. It depends on how much pent up bitterness and rancor exists when the civility barriers are breached.
So now the amateurs have joined the disinformation campaign, and I must say. Things are going splendidly.
An example is in order.
Did you believe the rainbow colored poppy story? It’s bullshit in case you’re wondering, but the calumny caught on and spread like an Australian wildfire. Viral status, because it triggered the homophobes in all the right places. Once triggered, they were free to post venomous messages aimed at gay people, instead of spending another second pondering why they’re hateful assholes incapable of accepting any person who isn’t a replica of themselves.
It’s easier to hate, and hate is easier with a trigger.
Speaking of hate. I hate to bring the Trump family into almost everything I write, but I’m going to do it again. Because Don the dad is the quintessential trigger man. He doesn’t even need to say anything anymore. His next rally could feature a huge viewing screen and Don in front of that screen attired in a cowboy outfit with a couple of gold plated six shooters. Then the screen could cycle through images of Mexicans, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, kneeling black football players, Muslims decapitating Santa Clause and democrats taking away assault rifles. Don wouldn’t need to say one damn word.
He could just stand in front of the images, pointing his guns into the crowd and make ptew, ptew sound effects. The crowd would eat it up I’m sure. They seem to love it when Don triggers them.
But here’s the thing.
For some reason the Don supporters from Fox to the rally attendee’s revel in Don telling it like it is. They celebrate how his words own and trigger the left. What they’re missing is that Don has his guns pointed at them too. They aren’t grasping that Don is firing his guns indiscriminately. He doesn’t care much who’s in the line of fire just so long as his body count is the greatest ever by a president.
So, I’m suggesting that if you’re passionate to the point of assaulting and berating journalists or you feel like running over some protesters with your car or knifing some Jews, then you should give some consideration to the idea that you’re being played.
You aren’t in control of being weaponized when it’s not your own finger on the trigger.