I don’t understand memes.
Every once in awhile, I type something vaguely smart on the internet, and someone will respond with some picture of a guy making some kind of face. Sometimes, the guy in the picture is even animated for a second or two. I have no idea who the guy is or what the face means. But I’m glad whoever read what I typed had some kind of thought.
I think I’m too old for the modern internet.
As one of the OG Red Pill guys (Am I using that right? OG?), I’m no stranger to groups of men who are anonymous, hiding behind internet alter-egos. After all, The Red Pill — a group of men who chat about love, sex, relationships, and the world in a way that’s kind of impolite and negative about women — is an extremist group.
If we set aside for a minute that the word “extremist” is often mentally associated with violent criminals and stick with the plain etymology, the word is not entirely inaccurate. The Red Pill is associated with ideas that are non-mainstream (though it seems to become more mainstream every year), and that dwell on the fringes of society. “Extreme” ideas, like ways men can increase their power in their relationships with women — when the accepted non-fringe idea is that men are already too empowered and need to be disempowered.
Not to mention, a bunch of men on the internet complaining about women and talking about ways to get laid is kind of cringe. (Do people still say cringe?)
When you’re an anonymous guy using a fake name like “Archwinger”, it’s a lot more comfortable talking about how much your wife sucks and won’t have sex with you. What does anybody care if some random internet nobody using a fake name is unattractive and in a bad marriage? Who cares if some anonymous internet nobody is having trouble getting laid? Nobody knows that real-world-you sucks with women if you only talk about it on the internet, wearing your “Archwinger” disguise.
When you’re anonymous, you can express unpopular “extreme” ideas. Even (gasp) share you feelings! You can be sad, depressed, upset, and frustrated about your sex life, your love life, or just how unfair the world seems for you, or even men in general. You can even express anger. Even hate!
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A little more about feelings:
The modern world has mostly given up on that God fellow and worships a new god: human expertise. We like to find the closest person wearing a lab coat or fancy uniform, or someone who can wave a paper rectangle issued by a university in our face, bow before them, and say “Please, oh great expert. I, a lowly normal person, while literate and intelligent, am not qualified to figure out basic decisions in my life without the help of experts like you. Please, oh please, impart your expertise upon me so I may follow it.”
When it comes to men having feelings, we are just normal people who don’t know what to do in the presence of emotions. Those emotions are dangerous! If a man feels something like anger, or even hate - especially if that anger or hate is directed toward a person, or a group or type of people - there is a 999,999% chance that the man will for sure commit crimes and hurt people. Men expressing negative emotions on the internet is a very scary problem.
Thankfully, one of our modern gods has the answer for us: therapy. A therapist is a person with a paper rectangle from a university that you report to when you feel negative emotions like anger because their expertise is the only way to stop you from committing crimes. Normal people are not capable of handling their emotions without the assistance of experts.
If the above three paragraphs don’t sound quite comfortable to you, you’re in luck. Being anonymous on the internet means that nobody knows who is actually angry or hateful in the real world. You can show your true emotions on the internet, while hiding among the general populace in the real world and acting normal. Nobody can tell the authorities to keep an eye on you or try to insist you report to a therapist due to your dangerous feelings when they don’t know who you are.
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But anyway:
Extreme ideas extend far beyond feelings. Or women and The Red Pill.
Some people don’t like their government very much. Some people don’t like people whose skin looks a certain way. Some people don’t like people who engage in non-standard gendered behaviors or sexual practices. Some people believe an illuminati ethno-religion has secretly taken over the world and don’t like them. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of crazy and extreme ideas you can find on the internet.
Honestly, some of these extreme ideas are probably really stupid. Maybe some are less stupid. But when you’re anonymous, nobody knows that real-world-you is stupid. You can just be some random internet nobody called “Archwinger”. Who cares if some anonymous nobody is stupid? As long as you only act stupid when you’re on the internet, wearing your disguise, real-world-you can blend in among the populace.
Some governments don’t like it when people are stupid. Because stupid people still get to vote, run businesses, spend money, and tell other people their stupid ideas. And when these people don’t know that they’re stupid and that their ideas are non-accepted extreme ideas, or worse, if they know this and don’t care, it’s a lot harder to find them and stop them from multiplying when they’re wearing internet disguises.
And even when governments don’t care, sometimes groups of right-minded people don’t like the idea of somebody who is stupid, extreme, or has dangerous emotions hiding among them in the real world. These dangerous people need to be afraid to have ideas that are’t liked by others. They need to be threatened — even harmed — and they need to lose their jobs and families (if they have them), because it shouldn’t be okay to say bad ideas or have dangerous emotions.
Honestly, these right-minded people do a much better job of enforcing accepted social behaviors than even governments do. If you get caught in the real world and prosecuted for a crime by your government, and you are officially found to be not guilty by your legal system, enforcement falls to these right-minded people, who know very well that anybody who escapes the legal system is simply a guilty man who got away with it and must be punished using alterante means.
As time passes, we’re probably going to see a push for greater internet regulation. It will start out as things that appear to be intended for safety, like proof of age to use the internet or to use certain types of internet platforms. But with proof of age (and compliance with other “safety” measures we’re likely to see) comes something far more sinister: proof of identity. The ability to tie every activity on the internet to a real-world person.
When every troll, every shitpost, every meme can cost you your job and family — when every extreme emotion and edgy comment can get your name added to a list (maybe you can even start receiving helpful therapist recommendations in your e-mail!) — when every stupid idea you express that may actually affect people may result in legal trouble or loss of your ability to continue expressing ideas on the internet — then we can have harmony and utopia.
But if that actually sounds kind of uncomfortable and awful to you, keep up the good fight. Normalize trolling. It may be the final frontier for freedom.
