Political Brain Rot - The Martyrdom of Communities For Power In The Digital Age

In all of my years online I have seen many communities rise and fall - and in that time I have seen many of them fall for similar reasons.

The Internet is a strange and powerful thing - as at it's core it's just the ability to share any kind of information - regardless of format - across borders and boundaries, nationally and internationally, with anyone - whether they're willing to receive said information or not.

This is why it's so open to exploitation by the political - door knocking campaigns, billboards, legacy media advertisements, and conventional word of mouth could never hold a candle to the reach and influence that the Internet allows for - and this has lead to every single website being a potential "platform" for people who seek power politically.

Of the many communities I have seen and resided within, all have fallen save for one - and that one has a certain set of rules. They're all common sense stuff - don't dox the other users. don't try to start shit, don't try to rope us into shit, don't fuck your friends - but the one that I believe has saved this community the most amount of annoyance and heartbreak has to be Rule #8 - "No politics".

You see politics - next to religious beliefs - has got to be one of the most divisive of topics on planet Earth - especially in American circles. There is a large contingency on all sides (there's more than two, it's not all black and white) who will see that someone is of a different political affiliation than them and will immediately shut down any semblance of good will towards them. Hostility ensues and potential bridges are burned before they're built. It's a vicious cycle but I see it daily.

I bring all this up because I feel like this goes against everything we all grew up learning - one of the most important things that we grew up learning - "there are people that are different than you, you can't change their minds, but you don't have to be mean to them and they don't have to be mean to you".

In the digital age, political pundits, stuffed shirts, and those who only seek to divide as a means of conquering have adopted the goal of taking every once fun and creative place and weaponizing it for their own gain, or the gain of their party or group. They dream of a world online in which every figurehead or personality may be praised or shouted down for their affiliations, where by extension all that they do, say, or create may be used as an example either of their side's superiority or of the other side's inferiority, they dream of a world in which there are no true "neutrals", where everyone - whether they signed up for it or not - are conscripts in a forever war of shit slinging and propagandizing.

I'm reminded of the lyrics to an old song:

"Neutrality means that you don't really care,
because the struggle goes on even when you're not there,
blind and unaware"

You know what? I don't really care. I don't care about what happening an ocean away on the other side of the world, I don't care what's happening a state away in my own country, and I don't even care what's happening a county away from me in my own state - I don't even really care what my neighbors are doing.

I just want to be able to enjoy things again - without being saddled with the politics addicted snobs who have to turn EVERYTHING political.

Give me your blind, your deaf, your dumb - your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

I believe it's time for a new philosophy in regards to politics online.

"Don't ask, don't tell".