So I girded my loins, caffeined myself up, put on some really peppy music and waded back into the swamp that is #TheTriggering — the Twitter hashtag designed to give the internet’s biggest jerks an excuse to be even more jerky than usual.
Having spent a few hours slogging through the hashtag earlier today, I expected to find an endless number of wholly unoriginal, and wholly uninteresting Tweets posted by jerky jerks trying so hard to be offensive it was almost painful to watch. Almost painful, definitely boring.
Ah, but something about the hashtag had changed since I last looked in on it!
The tweets have gotten much less predictable, and a good deal stranger, so much so that the “serious” $TheTriggering Tweets are becoming harder and harder to tell from the deliberately surreal Tweets from puckish SJWs trolling the hashtag.
As far as I can figure it, the “serious” would-be triggerers have, after more than 20 hours of non-stop would-be triggering, simply run out of offensive things to say.
Seriously, how many times can you post “there are only two genders” before everyone gets thoroughly bored by this bit of edginess. Well, ok, a LOT, but never mind that for now, because my point is that the serious would-be triggerers have had to come up with brand-new things to offend people with.
And, well, they’re pretty hilariously bad at it.
https://twitter.com/fwra1234/status/707749386877415424
https://twitter.com/james141980/status/707746965207920640
https://twitter.com/Shmexonaught/status/707748147217338372
Blue is not your colour.#TheTriggering
— SKELTER🇬🇧 (@SKELTER1SKELTER) March 10, 2016
Glaciers are not sexist you retards.#TheTriggering
— PewpSchute (@ThePewpschute) March 10, 2016
Meanwhile, others in the hashtag are descending into incoherence.
https://twitter.com/BothBoat403/status/707747919407898624
https://twitter.com/suainthesack/status/707754729871380480
This guy kind of has a point, though.
https://twitter.com/LIVE_In_Reverse/status/707748022235631616
And this guy is pretty good at parodying #TheTriggering Tweets.
Blind people just need to try harder. #TheTriggering
— Whatever Forever (@Scotch_Sailor) March 10, 2016
I just think we should be able to say "breasticles" at work, ok? #TheTriggering
— Whatever Forever (@Scotch_Sailor) March 10, 2016
Hey, he even made the same Trump steaks joke I made a few days ago:
@Ncoleycole @NatalieLanovill Are they made of real trump?
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) March 4, 2016
Trump steaks are made from genuine Trump, right?
— Whatever Forever (@Scotch_Sailor) March 5, 2016
Oh, sure, there are still some #TheTriggering Tweets that actually are kind of alarming.
https://twitter.com/HreAmngthDed33/status/707746850045104129
https://twitter.com/ArchHighLord/status/707746700115447809
And lots of standard-issue white supremacist crap.
https://twitter.com/OnlyCincinnatus/status/707746782038523904
https://twitter.com/TrumpHat/status/707749420989882368
https://twitter.com/AHitler88NSDAP/status/707748904016568320
But at this point the serious Tweets are giving way to Tweets that are just surreal. (And no, these aren’t all from SJWs trolling the hashtag.)
https://twitter.com/AngryComicist/status/707747638641168385
https://twitter.com/AngryComicist/status/707753688937332736
#thetriggering pic.twitter.com/usIXyTY0Hl
— Le SJW xD (@waifuscotland) March 10, 2016
https://twitter.com/blakebelladonna/status/707775628083388417
Honestly, that’s the most terrifying thing I’ve seen so far in #TheTriggering.
I enjoy being a woman. Boys and men have tried, but none has been able to talk me out of this. #TheTriggering
Men have had 6,000 years of patriarchy to have their say. I’m bored. So most of the books I read are written by women. #TheTriggering
My male cat behaves very badly but I love him anyway. He’s a cat. My tolerance for males’ bad behavior does not extend to men. #TheTriggering
@EJ
Damn. Really? OK I’ve read the guy’s forum post now. Seems honest, but still pretty obvious that he doesn’t fully understand the problem.
When PZ joined this server, nobody there knew that he’s a blogger. I.e. there were people of all kinds there. PZ advertised for the server on Pharyngula because the number of active players had dropped very low, and then a large group of Pharyngulites joined. Thus the server was majority atheist and majority feminist, which made it a pleasant place for me.
Of course, some of the older players are still around, and sometimes they say stupid shit, like people do. I have ignored things before, and sometimes called things out when absolutely necessary. This hasn’t been a huge problem in my experience, and I’ve never witnessed anything as serious as this thing you mention. I sincerely hope it hasn’t turned you off the server permanently. We like your company. 🙂
OT: I just landed in New Jersey a few hours ago. Why is it 82 degrees out on mid March? What’s happening.
In Minnesota, we only had one significant storm all winter and there’ve been so many above freezing days since then that the snow has been pretty much gone for weeks. As of this week, I’ve put away my winter coats.
That is very strange for us. It’s usually a slushy mess this time of year. Average highs are in the upper 30s to low 40s. It’s going to be in the mid 60s tomorrow and Saturday.
I feel guilty because I’m enjoying it. I know in the long run, global warming is nothing to be happy about. But the arrival of spring alleviates my winter depression and lethargy immediately. I feel so good this week compared to the last few months.
Has it finished already? So disappointed, I’ve had fun with Twitter for the first time in ages.
Oh, but she was though.
And then adding #TheTriggering to quotes lifted from The Little Book of Calm…
@Chiara,
I don’t understand Twitter, but I think that a # with enough traffic goes on the front page or in a list of “trending topics” or something. The idea was that if enough of them posted they could make their triggerfest so big everyone would be forced to notice it.
Unfortunately for them, it turns out they’re not actually a silent majority.
My god, I have never seen something quite so terrible, so horrifying, so absolutely revolting as…that dust ruffle!!
A quality bed skirt with straight clean lines, however, is essential. Gives both small dogs and cats of various sizes somewhere to lurk while waiting for passing feet and ankles.
The only thing these wankers are triggering in me is an unholy urge to laugh and point in the direction of their sad, sweaty crotches. #TriggerFail
@Petal
We have some unusual weather this year. It was about 70 on Christmas where I was on the East Coast, then they had a blizzard. We’re having an El Niño year.
EJ (The Other One):
By the way, notch came out as a full GarbageGoat couple of weeks ago, so right now I’m just vaguely glad that Minecraft has changed owners…
Except that trending hashtags are usually inane twitter games like #FilmPoops (yes, that’s currently trending) that everyone knows to ignore.
@IP:
I’m going to wait to see how the rest of the community reacts. I felt it was good of him to know that he should apologise, but his apology contained a doubling-down self-justification within it, which is some pretty weak stuff.
It’s an acid test of the community standards, I suppose. If people thank him for apologising or hold his feet to the fire, that’s a good thing. If people leap to defend his frozen peaches, then I know not to come back.
The funny thing is, I actually do have a phobia of surrealism, so the cover picture did freak me out. I don’t know that I’d describe it as “triggering”, but it’s probably something like it. 😛
Antimatter is a code word for anti-white.
Antipasto is a code word for anti-white.
Auntie Mame is a code word for anti-white.
As a first-time commenter, lest there be any doubt, this is intended as a parody of one of the most ridiculous slogans I have ever come across.
MRA= a man determined to pretend he’s a victim so he can justify how awful his life is #thetriggering
The false reporting of rape is the same percentage as the false reporting of other crimes, there is no false rape conspiracy #thetriggering
MRA’s project their insecurity and exploitative nature onto women, what they’re really protesting is their own awful views #thetriggering
People should stop whining and just accept that dinosaurs had feathers #TheTriggering
The new Star Wars movie was good, but a little too much of a remake of ANH for my taste #TheTriggering
I think Spiders are cool #TheTriggering
People who try to Trigger others are not only jerks, they are delusional if they think they get any reaction besides annoyed indifference #TheTriggering
When I was a kid, Tigger was my favorite character on Winnie the Pooh bouncy trouncy flouncy pouncy fun fun fun fun fun #TheTiggering
Always glad to find someone else who thinks spiders are cool. Of course, that’s easy for me to say. I live somewhere that has very few spiders that pose any kind of threat to humans. I think we have some brown recluses here. But that’s about it.
One of my favourite internet memes is that poor spider pointing out how nice and helpful spiders are and getting no thanks for his efforts. I love them.
Did somebody say spiders?
One of my house spiders hatched her eggsac last night and the little fellers have been ballooning off the air conditioner. I’ll be putting them outside in the morning, but for now, it’s so friggin’ cute.
Spiders are the best. There’s one that hangs out at the bottom of the stairs leading to my garage that eats all the annoying bugs before they get into the house, and they’re always welcome in my garden for keeping my plants safe from pests. Most people enjoy caterpillars, but I don’t appreciate how they get into my herbs all the time. Spiders take care of that problem for me. 😀
Put me down as another spider-lover. They’re such helpful little things, since they have no interest in my food and eat things that DO have interest in my food. It’s like having tiny guard dogs.
And some of them are just so pretty!
Sometimes I wish I wasn’t arachnophobic because yeah, spiders are so helpful when it comes to bugs and generally wonderful.
It sucks that they terrify me so much… 🙁
Anti-Webist is a code word for Anti-Orb Weaver #TheTriggering
We must ban all funnel web spiders from entering this country #TheTriggering
Jumping Spiders are okay though, they`re good at math #TheTriggering
Daddy longlegs aren’t really spiders. #thetriggering
While I concur with the sentiment, that’s kind of the opposite of a dog.
Nope, they’re public transportation for pseudoscorpions!