This week has been pile on city, and I’m watching people I used to respect turn into schoolyard bullies with blue checkmarks and LinkedIn profiles.
Everyone’s got a take. Everyone’s got an opinion. Everyone’s got their pitchforks sharpened and ready to go after whoever’s been designated as today’s main character.
It’s like the entire internet decided to cosplay as a medieval mob, except instead of torches they’re wielding half baked we’re inclusive posts and righteously indignant selfies to “press the issue” or funnel people into their offers…
And the worst part? Half these people aren’t even genuinely outraged. They’re just desperate for engagement because they can’t figure out how to actually market themselves, so they’ve turned moral grandstanding into their personal brand strategy.
I mean I guess I can say that I’ve seen it all, but then shit like this happens and they’re just out crawling over the internet yet again. Then I get a gentle reminder that the social media world is filled with garbage humans in spaces that used to be genuinely great.
“Yaaasss Queen” responses in the comments have become the new currency of social media validation.
People aren’t taking stands because they believe in something…
The stands are there because it gets them likes, shares, and that sweet dopamine hit of feeling morally superior to someone else, while still preaching moral superiority and inclusivity lol.
It’s honestly just virtue signalling used as a marketing tactic and it’s going to be in one of their next $997 influencer courses [Barf]
We’re in 2026, and somehow people have gotten worse at being human, not better.
You’d think after everything we’ve been through. Pandemics, economic chaos, political insanity, that we’d have learned some basic lessons about empathy, nuance, and not being complete assholes to each other online.
But no. Instead, we’ve gotten more tribal, more performative, more eager to destroy someone’s life over a poorly worded tweet, post or an out-of-context video clip.
The pile-on mentality has become so normalised that people genuinely think they’re doing good work when they join the mob.
It’s like the movie Bloodsport except it’s for all of these scumbags on social media.
On top of that. Everyone’s got their pet GPT writing their outrage takes now, so even the moral indignation isn’t authentic anymore. It’s algorithmically optimised virtue signalling, perfectly crafted to maximise engagement while saying absolutely nothing meaningful at all.
The wild thing is. Most of these people would never have the balls to say this shit to someone’s face. But put them behind a screen with an audience of fellow bullies cheering them on, and suddenly they’re warriors for truth and justice.
The internet has turned everyone into the worst version of themselves, and social media algorithms reward the worst behaviour. The more outrageous your take, the more engagement you get. The more you participate in pile-ons, the more the platform shows your content to other people who love a good public shaming.
Never would I have seen people gamify cruelty…
Oh? You’re an activist because of what you’re doing? (blow me)
Maybe it’s time to log off and remember what it feels like to be a decent human being without an audience.
Maybe it’s time to stop treating other people’s mistakes as content opportunities.
Maybe it’s time to realise that the person you’re dunking on for internet points is an actual human being with feelings and a life that extends beyond whatever dumb thing they said online.
But who am I kidding? Next week there’ll be a new target, a new pile-on, a new opportunity for everyone to perform their moral superiority for the cheap seats.
2026 and we’re still just apes with smartphones throwing shit at each other for sport.
People need to be better. Or at least try to be.
Stephen Walker.
P.S. This isn’t being pointed directly at anyone specifically but if you’ve been in the space the last week or so, you may know what’s going on…