I mean something can not be intended as bait, but still be bait, you know? It’s the way in which it’s framed in social media, which creates bait out of otherwise well-intentioned conversations and reactions. Strip out context, show someone this side by side with a feed of schlock about say, an ongoing war, a bunch of shitposts, whatever, and it can make it appear trivial by comparison, not worth engaging with, in good faith, you know?

I’d also say, right, like, sort of along the same lines of what I said up top about like, people not being able to have conversations anymore without making each other feel pissed off, right. Without pressing buttons, you know. Part of that communication, part of that speaking up and speaking out, is the back and forth. I think for that back and forth to exist, well, probably social media not being helpful to that is the biggest factor, but that back and forth also has to be like, a conversation. I dunno. Clarifying questions go a long way, or like, “oh what about this”, you know, kinds of things. It integrates people into the conversation more than just like, a big chicago style dump on the chest, or like.

I dunno, have you ever been in those conversations where it’s just someone kind of awkwardly venting for like 30 or 40 minutes, and then everyone else is kind of not engaging with them and is actively avoiding them? That’s sort of like the thing I want to avoid. To be clear that’s mostly the fault of the people actively avoiding or not engaging with it, for whatever trauma. I mean probably that’s better than like asking shitheel questions that cause the venting person to go off more or just get mad, but yeah, still bad to just uhh, remain silent as a response to someone talking to you. Not to say that’s what you’re saying when you’re saying like, make sure women aren’t silenced or, asked to soften their language, right, but, I guess that’s just my accompanying like, stipulation right. That conversations are two way kind of by definition, you know?

I’m also speaking in generalities right now, and yeah the bigger problem in general for sure is just that social media is kind of a context stripping machine that encourages pithy comebacks and imposes character limits and pushes human communication through image macros and other high pressure needle jets the size of a pin that can cut through diamonds.