rick wilson . blocking trolls
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Dear MAGA Trolls:
Since Boy Elon’s takeover of Twitter (I will refuse to call it X until you’ve got my genitals hooked up to jumper cables and a power drill working on my kneecaps, and even then, it’s unlikely), the platform has descended into a deeply unlaudatory new space where the moments of laughter, felicity, and occasional enlightenment have vanished.
Elon’s endless tweaking of the system to reduce it to a fever swamp of alt-right MAGA conspiracy slurry continues apace, and nothing is more pernicious than his elevation of morons and the algorithmic reordering of the platform into an adjunct of the more mentally dim precincts of the Trump campaign. Yes, MAGA…I’m talking about you.
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Game of Blocking
Twitter was fun and messy in the Before Times. These days, it’s hard to keep the flood tide of truly insufferable zombie howling from reaching a level so deafening that it makes it impossible to even find news.
One feature remains: blocking and reporting.
Well, blocking still works, but I’ve reported direct and explicit threats of violence and raging racial and anti-Semitic content, and since Twitter no longer has a Trust and Safety department, it rarely does any good.
I block liberally in a last-ditch effort to curate what’s left of my Twitter feed. Occasionally, one of the people I’ve blocked launches into a triumphant grunt, believing they’ve somehow won a battle with me.
Bless your hearts, but no. Social media is an attention economy, and you have no claim to mine after one strike. Nothing about you is interesting enough to tolerate the psychic overhead of your blistering pig ignorance, tiresome trolling strategies, and puerile name-calling. You win nothing.
This is an evolving list of why I blocked you, and I hope you’ll be able to have
just enough self-reflection to find yourself in this catalog of reasons.
This Is Why I Blocked You
- You’re an idiot. That covers a wide spectrum of behavior, but it’s quite likely that’s why I blocked you.
- You’re posing in your Ford F-150 wearing knockoff Dollar Store Costa sunglasses, a goatee, Punisher or FJB shirt, and a faux tough-guy expression.
Bitch, you’re an insurance adjustor who lives in an overpriced 3/2 ranch house in a fading suburb with a hausfrau design sense and Live Laugh Love posters, not Rip from Yellowstone. That’s why I blocked you and why your wife is banging her Pilates instructor.
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It’s always the same damn guys.
- It’s not because you made some powerful, irrefutable political point. It’s because you didn’t and can’t. It’s not that I couldn’t respond to your argument; it’s that you didn’t have one, and I couldn’t be bothered to ever waste another mental cycle on you, which is why I blocked you.
- You’re a paidcheck fake-verified account. Since the introduction of this program, the “we hate the elites, but I pay the richest man in the world $8 a month” folks have caused America’s strategic irony supply to overflow. Faux-verified accounts are the single strongest correlation to dumb tweeting, indifferent grammar, terrible spelling, and Trump sycophancy imaginable. That’s why I blocked you.
- You’re free to adopt a fantasy version of America’s history and a funhouse mirror account of our form of governance, the founding, and its principles. I can’t undo your indifferent education and limited reading abilities, but I’m also not obligated to listen to your ahistorical bleating, so I blocked you.
- Your bio and profile talk about the primacy of your Christianity, but you also spend an inordinate amount of time condemning the rest of God’s children to the fires of hell and wallowing in your own sanctimony. That’s why I blocked you.
- You call the January 6th, 2021, attackers of the Capitol “freedom fighters,” “political prisoners,” or “martyrs.” They are petty thugs, MAGA terrorists, attackers of police, and besmirchers of the sacred seat of American democracy serving time for their crimes. That’s why I blocked you.
- You follow, or worse, retweet scammer Dinesh D’Scamza, rage-control ham-head Bingobongdildo, Bumbledore Pizza Jack, or human-flounder hybrid Charlie Kirk, Saw cosplayer Laura Loomer, and many other MAGA scamfluencers. Your promotion and adoration of these low-wattage choads is precisely why I blocked you.
- You’re just trolling, and therefore, you’re just boring. That’s why I blocked you.
- You’re using stock photos or AI-generated avatars, an instant sign of bad faith. That’s why I blocked you.
- In a subset of Item 10, you’re using an avatar of a statue of a Roman general, emperor, or god. You’re not classically educated and know nothing about Rome, Roman history, or anything else in the Western Canon. Playing Rome: Total War and watching Gladiator is not the same. Your Mom’s basement is far from the Glory of Rome, though I would love to introduce you to the Tarpeian Rock. That’s why I blocked you.
- You’re an Alex Jones (the late Alex Jones, not the crisis actor playing him now) stan. Because fish people, gay frogs, and other wacky amusements don’t outweigh his lavish cruelty and conspiracy-mongering. That’s why I blocked you…or did I just do it because the Deep State ordered me to?
- You use the word “cuck” unironically. That’s why I cock-blocked you. Your wife did send a lovely thank-you note, however.
- You believe Joe Rogan is a philosopher, intellectual, or credible news source, so I blocked you.
- You’re a Proud Boy, Oath Keeper, or Roger Stone taint-licker, and you admit it publicly. Your taste in role models is in your ass, and that’s why I blocked you.
- Any f**king reference at all to QAnon, WWG1WGA, or any of the rest of that pernicious fantasy is why I instantly block you after insulting you for a bit over the pending indictments and my imminent trip to GITMO, which never quite seems to arrive.
- You’re a busty, superhot, heavily photoshopped glammed-out woman who doesn’t exist in this universe declaring your undying love for Donald Trump and tweeting the dumbest shit I’ve seen since they modeled an AI after Simple Jack.
In reality, you’re on a carb-only diet of pure corn syrup and oxycontin, and your Rascal Scooter's suspension has seen better days. Catfish elsewhere, Karen. That’s why I blocked you.
- You adore accused human trafficker Andrew Tate or have any indicia of his “Hustler’s University” on your profile. Mommy still pays for your PS4 games, and those chicken tendies aren’t Alpha Male power pods. That’s why you’re blocked, incel.
- You have a Punisher avatar or post Punisher-themed memes. It doesn’t make you look tough, but it does make us aware of your erectile dysfunction. That’s why I blocked you.
- You use a Pepe the Frog avatar. Hi, 2016 called, and it wants its trolling back. You were a racist and anti-Semitic dipshit then, and now you’re more pudgy and insufferable. That’s why I blocked you.
- You’re one of a number of former Never Trumpers who bent the knee and now revel in the idea that if you just look away from Trump’s horrors and own the libs by desperately trying to troll your betters, sempai will notice you. It’s not happening.
You’re never getting a gig at Fox, the pay in the MAGA media ecosystem is shit, you’ll never work for Trump, and weirdly, you haven’t had a moment of happiness since you gave in to evil. That’s why I blocked you.
- You’re an anti-vax freak with “Pureblood” in your profile who thinks bleach, UV light, and horse dewormer work on viruses. Yeah, measles and polio are awesome. You’re in Darwin’s waiting room, and I hope to all the gods your number is next. That’s why I blocked you, you lunatic.
- You have any of a cluster of anti-Semitic images or code phrases in your avatar such as “Noticer,” “Jews control _____,” “globalist,” “6MWE”, or variations of the “Smirking merchant” avatar.
That’s why I blocked you, and if you weren’t an anonymous chickenshit, I’d drag you publicly for days until you screamed for mercy. (And I don’t mean metaphorically on Twitter. I meant tied to the bumper of my car.)
- “Nudes in bio.” (Nothing against nudes qua nudes, but in the case of the 5,000,000 Chinese bots pushing virus-laden porn sites…nah.) That’s why I blocked you.
- You’re a pretend veteran (or pretend law enforcement) stolen valor catfishing scumbag tweeting pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine talking points that barely made it out of Google Translate. You wouldn’t know a DD-214 if it bit you on your ass, Ivan. Take a potato from Bin 2 when your shift ends. That’s why I blocked you.
- Whatever godforsaken crypto or pump-and-dump penny stock scam you’re pushing. That’s why I blocked you.
- Your MAGA boomer Facebook-level memes are a pathetic gumbo of Trump adulation (shirtless pictures of a ripped Trump on a tank or locomotive tell me so much about your Pornhub search history, boys), lurid Biden derangement, and imagined lib-owning. This is why I blocked you.
- Your user name is RandomFirstName plus a long string of random numbers. You’re not just a tendentious moron; you’re lazy, which is why I blocked you.
- You argue that you MUST remain anonymous or the Deep State and Big Tech will disappear you for the shocking political choice to defend Donald Trump. You’re about as important to the deep state as that patch of poison ivy out in the back acreage; irritating but ultimately unimportant. That’s why I blocked you.
- You call me a pedophile. I am, of course, not a pedophile, but you’ve taken the most vile insult possible and either believe it — in which case, see Item 1 — or you’re just trolling — in which case, see Item 8. That’s why I blocked you, and if you’d like a list of GOP pedophiles, it’s just a Google search away.
- In a related matter, you falsely accuse me of being under criminal investigation by the FBI or other law enforcement for pedophilia and “texting underage men.” Again, a ludicrous lie, of course. One MAGA fraudster tried this recently, and now he’s in jail. Again. Also, that’s why I blocked you.
- You accuse me — in the most colorful and middle-school terms — of being gay… as if it matters. I’m not, as your wife can attest, but you sure seem to think about my genitals a lot. That’s why I blocked you.
- You call me a globalist. Just say “Jew”…because that’s what you mean. That’s why I blocked you.
- You challenge me to a fistfight, a Greco-Roman wrestling match, an MMA fight, or a boxing match to prove your superiority.
I know you can’t feel the homoerotic projection in these tweets of yours, but I can, and I decline your weird obsession with being sweaty with me. Also, I blocked you.
- You threaten my kids. That’s why I blocked many of you and will hunt you down until you cry for mercy.
- You’re boring and repost the same boring content about your boring conspiracy theory about your personal boring obsession in the boring culture war. That’s why I blocked you.
- You’re still fanboying Ron DeSantis. That’s totally why I blocked you.
And lest you think I spend much personal time blocking you, think again; I have people for this. A list of good search terms makes it a breeze to drop MAGA morons into the digital memory hole.
I’ll likely keep adding to these rules as we go.
www.abc.net.au
popular.info
