I know the pandemic wreaked havoc with a lot of folks' mental health, but I do think a large part of why America's asshole id is running rampant right now is because from the top down there just aren't any fucking consequences. I remember it being notable when I'd see some boomer go off on a poor retail worker, but now it's a rare week when I don't see someone just being an absolute raging asshole to people.
― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, October 14, 2022 this is true. my partner works in a school and she's been co-leading a series of fire drills for the school that means that they have to stop traffic for ten minutes while the kids cross the street. She has been screamed at, flipped off and menaced by slow rolling SUVs threatening to plow through a group of six year olds. That feels weirdly normalized.
― “Cheeky cheeky!” she trills, nearly demolishing a roadside post (forksclovetofu), Friday, October 14, 2022
I have noticed this too but felt like I must be hallucinating. The other day while driving I paused to let someone go ahead of me and they flipped me off anyway.
― treeship., Friday, October 14, 2022
Bad aggressive driving is demonstrably up nationwide: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fatal-car-crash-increase-risky-driving-rcna43969
My somewhat-COVID-obsessive brother speculates this is cognitive impairment from "brain fog." My own guess is a general loosening of social bonds and individualist entitlement as a result of both Trump and the pandemic. But who knows?
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Friday, October 14, 2022
my friend told me that she was walking behind a lady that had an absurdly long trail of toilet extending from the back of her pants and trailing onto the floor, and that she approached her to politely and gently tell her so she could avoid embarrassment, and before getting a word out, the lady yelled "BACK THE FUCK OUT OF MY FUCKING FACE".
good luck w/ yr butt
― stank viola (Neanderthal), Friday, October 14, 2022
there was a time where I would get baited into minor altercations with other drivers, but now I'm too terrified of them, I just move to the next lane and let them aggro drive by me.
― stank viola (Neanderthal), Friday, October 14, 2022
yep, I hesitate to even honk to warn someone when they are about to do something stupid/dangerous, lest I get shot
― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, October 14, 2022
I've had guys jump out of their cars to yell at me.
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Friday, October 14, 2022
Driving feels like being in a bar where some guys are looking for a fight
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Friday, October 14, 2022
one time 9 years ago this dude was driving aggressive and cut me off in traffic, and I was having a bad week and shot him the bird, and dude began actively trying to make me wreck, slamming on his brakes every few seconds at random intervals, and then when I'd try to pass him in the lane on the left, he started moving over so I couldn't leave the lane. eventually other people got pissed at him and started honking at him for almost hitting them, and I managed to pull over and calm the fuck down.
needless to say....I don't flip people off anymore.
― stank viola (Neanderthal), Friday, October 14, 2022
Years ago my wife and I were driving into the city in our then three week old car and this aggressive dude kept tailgating people and switching lanes constantly, at one point he almost swiped right into us and I honked at him. Didn't even flip the bird or make any gesture, just honked. He flew out in front of us, brake checked us and then got behind us to tailgate again. We quickly got off at the next exit and he kept following us. Even as I started turning down random side streets he stayed right on our ass, so at the point my wife was understandably freaking out. Not wanting to end up lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood with some psycho chasing us, I pulled over to the side of the road in front of a fire station hoping it'd be populated. Dude pulled up next to us and swiped his passenger side mirror against our car, leaving a giant scratch/gouge the entire length of the car. I got the license plate and description and called the cops, hoping to at least get a police report for insurance purposes. The cop's response? "What do you want us to do about it? I'm sure he's long gone."
― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, October 14, 2022
Me, I've gotten more confident about responding to aggression: I flip the bird, yell "fuck you," anything to dare these fuckers into killing this invulnerable faggot.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, October 14, 2022
Just this morning a guy cut me off and I honked at him. He started doing that slamming the brakes thing and I swerved around him and passed him. I realized that this kind of thing is so common that I don't even have a physical reaction anymore.
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Friday, October 14, 2022
I'm sure all of you have realized this already but it really is dawning on me just how much the recent insanity of the GOP isn't really Trump's doing but rather a product of social media, or rather phones and the internet in general. We have all experienced firsthand just how bad it is for your mental health to have this much news in your life and honestly I bet it's even worse for right wingers. In the Bush era they'd get a half-hour of FOX News each day or maybe would sit down after work to read some crackpot's email newsletter or whatever. Now these people are checking their phone every 5 minutes and watching podcasts while they work, just getting a steady stream of disinformation telling them that everything they see is a lie, everyone is out to get you, every scientific fact is made up, etc. I mean if you watched that stuff as much as the people I know do you'd probably go insane too. This is why they're so adamant about "censorship", they know the real obstacle is getting booted off Twitter or Instagram or Facebook or whatever, because I honestly believe that half these people would become a hell of a lot more reasonable & rational if they just logged the fuck off for a couple weeks. To me, that's how you "fix" the problem, however you want to define it - you may say that people like MTG, Trump, Bobert, Gaetz, etc. are so unreasonable and insane that they shouldn't be allowed to hold office, but the reality is a huge chunk of their base has been conditioned like dogs to believe the same shit they do! They really do represent the people that voted them in! I think there has been some success in pressuring hosting services to drop harmful sites (see the whole Keffals/Cloudflare/Kiwifarms thing) but I wonder if there is going to be some coordinated movement to go after the advertisers - like any company running ads during Tucker Carlson's White Power Hour oughta be named and shamed a lot more than they are. It should be nothing but MyPillow ads and gold coins to commemorate that one time Trump totally got a hole in one. It's a sad state of affairs but maybe this is where it starts?
― frogbs, Friday, October 14, 2022
Yes. This has probably been noted dozens of times previously and qualifies as capital T Trenchant at this point, but it occurred to me recently that the comments section of any website used to be the worst, most horrifying, must-to-avoid part of the internet and then at some point when I wasn't paying attention the entire internet morphed into the comments section of the internet.
― Beautiful Bean Footage Fetishist (Old Lunch), Friday, October 14, 2022