Why You Were Blocked (Instead of Beaten on the Street with a Baseball Bat)
In the olden days (which for most online is before 1995 when we luddites and pioneers got consumption and had no way to tell people about it for lack of powerful computer bricks inches from our puckerholes that we could use for taking pictures of ourselves and not ever needing to enter a library), if someone decided to call you out or troll you or disparage your person in an injurious way, we'd just go to your house with a baseball bat and smash the shit out of your windshield. Or maybe your kneecaps.
Yes. Hyper-masculine and overly aggressive. A public beat down after being called names or challenged with a Hitler analogy was more typical than walking away with dignity or speaking like adult people. We didn't quite have all the guns flooding the shelves of the local Walmart back then, so a solid fistfight (which, more often than not, resembled two eight-year olds pretending they learned karate by watching David Carradine in Kung Fu) was the way we solved those nasty little personal attacks.
Now? We are evolved. We can simply press our mouse or trackpad as it hovers over a blue box on the screen and BLOCK people.
At this point, my Facebook and Twitter BLOCK list is as long as my right forearm because it is just easier to BLOCK you than to come find you and hurl epithets that let you know exactly how I feel about you. BLOCKING is facile when compared to an open-palm slap.
Why did I BLOCK you?*
- You are a dimwit who couldn't understand that trolling a theater critic because you didn't like her review of a show you had nothing to do with was unnecessarily vicious.
- You are of the Alt-Right ilk.
- You are an ex-girlfriend who decided that my disinterest in your weird cultish religious beliefs was somehow the same as gaslighting you.
- You think picking on people who are non-white, non-males is somehow really funny.
- You are the person hired to take my place at my old job and are subsequently destroying the program I built for a decade.
- You use the term "whypipo" without irony.
- You're her friend.
- You are a creepy local comedian who uses your photography to skeeve on women in the comedy scene.
- You are an unwashed, fetid cocksucker who decided to join a campaign of insults and hyperbolic trashing of me without any provocation whatsoever.
- You're his friend.
- You joined a campaign of insults and hyperbolic trashing of me for no apparent reason.
- You joined a campaign of insults and hyperbolic trashing of me and don't even know me.
- You joined a campaign of insults and hyperbolic trashing of anyone.
- You are a perpetual victim who uses the internet to try to win the gold medal in the Olympiad of Victim Status.
- You're kind of douchey or strident or just fucking irritating.
*Real reasons someone is on my blocklist.
When I was 22 years old, I had the energy to get thoroughly pissed off, full of righteous indignation, and go get all confrontational. At this point, combined with the random pains in my shoulder or ankle, my tendency to gain 400 pounds by eating a slice of fucking bread, and my overwhelming desire to take as many naps as I can, blocking people on social media is a blessing. When I go with the mantra "I may not need to pee but if I get the chance I'm gonna" the lesson enfolded is that the less energy I put into the bullshit of dickstains on the internet, the better.
Sure, it would be all vulnerable to open up and admit that some of these people hurt my feel feels but I'm Irish and male and so, in addition to you, I've effectively blocked all access to my emotions except for rage and joy.
Best part of the whole damn thing is you can BLOCK me right back and I subconsciously feel better.
