ok for real have y’all noticed this: that people sometimes end their INSTAGRAM POSTS with corporate-y social engagement questions that are wholly disingenuous? so for example someone who professes to be a photographer (which is to say they own an expensive camera and have an adobe creative cloud license (lol)) will post a picture of a trail near the hollywood sign with a caption like: “had a great morning run. sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to get out of the house and hit the trails!” which, whatever, people are going to be boring as hell till the end of time . . . EXCEPT that the next sentence is some bullshit question like “where are some of your favorite places to run?” followed by fifty god damn esoteric hashtags signifying absolutely nothing. what??? you don’t freaking care where i like to run you absolute creep, and don’t you even dare pretend for one second that you do!!!

how did this happen? whoever invented the startup world’s favorite call-to-action phrase “join the conversation!” should be put in front of a firing squad, because not only has this hateful trash infected every square inch of the once-beautiful world wide web, but it has also (unsurprisingly, given that this is The Point Of Such Speech) transmuted itself into Normal People’s everyday way of interacting with their fellow human beings, meaning we are now spoken to by OUR PEERS as though we are the target demographic for . . . something i guess?? what are you selling, man? do you even know? in an age where people are encouraged to Become Brands Themselves and to run their own phony PR for their own phony lives, it is disturbing to me that this idea-disease has not only rapidly picked up traction, but has also, in many ways, become THE NEW NORMAL.

you want some advice dudes?? start talking like a human being instead of talking to me like you’re trying to sell me a fucking vacuum cleaner. and: stop sanitizing the internet with your safe, sterile, falsely playful / engaging horseshit!! the internet needs to be weird and dirty again. it’s gotta be, dude. i’m doing my part, OK?! my soul is prepared. how’s yours????