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God I know this feeling and it resonates so hard. I used to tell one of my cousin’s I occasionally talk to, one primary difference between us and Gen Z is we grew up with the Internet, they grew up on the Internet. I get sent Instagram reels All. The. Time. And it’s the most unbelievably, mindless, boring ass shit you could possibly watch. It’s the human stimulative equivalent of a lab rat getting a hit of cocaine. Because of that, I never watch anything social media related people send to me.
Very few people understand my sense of humor and even of those that do, fewer still are sympathetic to it. I have a very insulting, smart ass, matter of fact tone of engagement that I have to be careful with in ordinary conversation because it turns a lot of people off.
What little engagement I have on the Internet eventually has people thinking I’m an Internet troll because I deliver my intellectual counterpunches with a note of sarcasm; that leads people to believe I’m replying just to get a rise out of others. I’m not. Your position looks ridiculous because it ‘is’ ridiculous. Irony and sarcasm is a huge part of the way I live my life. I have the faculty of humor. I’m not going to repress that. That’s the twist. Back then we didn’t call that being a “troll,” which is a vastly overused term. A “troll” is someone who’s being edgy solely for the sake of getting a rise out of you. People used to describe people like me more accurately as a “flamer,” not a troll. I’m not a troll my dear. I’m an asshole.
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