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Adventures In The Outrage Industrial Complex
The unbearable lightness of touching grass.
Last week, while enjoying a 2 am stroll in the middle of winter, I was ambushed by two illegal immigrants wearing MAGA hats and gender-non-conforming haircuts.
They threw me to the ground, tied my hands behind my back, and threatened to teach my kids Critical Race Theory.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked as they touched my hair without consent.
“Why are you doing this?” one of them replied, looking around for a spot to tie the noose he happened to be carrying.
“Doing what??!” I asked. “Existing?!”
“No,” he said, “making up this obviously fake story to rile up your readers.”
It wasn’t the answer I was expecting.
“Okay, fine,” I replied, “maybe this exact incident didn’t happen, but there are some crazy people out there. Remember that black kid who shot up his school because he’d been radicalised into hating other black people? Or the white kid who live-streamed himself killing black shoppers at a supermarket?”
“Sure,” he said, lightly dousing me with gasoline, “But most people aren’t like this, right? Do you even try to contextualise that for your audience? Or do you bombard them with the worst…