I gave up social media many years ago, then recently decided to try Mastodon. I am at Mastodon.cloud. I posted about an article that explained more than 1600 Native Americans were systematically slaughtered in California in the 19th century (hundreds of thousands of others enslaved, or driven into places where they starved). So a guy responded by saying “too bad they stopped at 1600 red niggers, should have killed them all”. I looked at his other posts–racist hate for anyone of color, incel misogyny, virulent homophobia. I posted about it giving his screenname, saying he should be banned from this domain of Mastodon. This got me retaliation from his cronies–a couple dozen obscene hate posts from his fellow White Supremacist incel homophobes.
When I got hate posts from the White Supremacists, I’d look at more of their posts to know what to say when reporting them. It was a deep dive into a mind. Post after post after post. Anyone’s posts reveal a mind, but these were all one state of mind; an id oozing like sweat from a person long ill. Claustrophobic. Rants gave way to hate memes; pics of guns, sputtered mocking cartoons, sneers. Over & over. Charnel free-association, random spurts of rage; tormented humor: all of it iterating. Isolated, claustrophobic.
They’re trapped in an endless hunt for the same rage-release spurts. They communicate with one another–but that’s just a hall of mirrors, a paradoxical confirmation of their isolation. All their communication with one another is endless hate ritualism; it becomes a kaleidoscope of their own nightmarish maze of hate…And the great irony is that they believe their maze of hate is a glorious celebration of freedom.