I'll try to make this one simple, so that I don't have to respond too often on my Sunday :)

Ahem

Once upon a time, one day, the village idiot bought an iPhone. They quickly learned that every village had its own idiot, and many of them disliked the same obscure thing - a thing that was once niche, but now spreading everywhere, watered down as it grew popular. So the idiot began messaging the others.

The idiot had a thought: What if everyone who enjoyed this once‑obscure thing could be tracked, mocked, and silenced? What if an automated system could ban them, one by one, across villages? And what if even those loosely connected to the “thing” were added to the list, treated as subhuman, and denied a voice?

The idiot’s name was Randi Harper. She began compiling names into a spreadsheet. Errors crept in, but the rules were simple: By Any Means Necessary and No Bad Targets. Friendly fire was not a mistake - it was proof the list mattered. And the list grew.

Soon the list wasn’t just about the original “thing”. It spread to sports, cinema, anime, children’s fiction. It expanded into race, gender, and class. The ball of intersectional outrage grew massive, rolling over people far removed from the original dispute. The village idiots cheered, convinced they were righteous.

Then the truth emerged: only journalists and opportunists were really promoting the list. Behind the noise lay darker stories - abuse, violence, corruption. The village idiots had been ostracised for a reason. Now, united by their iPhones, they became something worse.

Their platform was bought out. They fled to another one, called BlueSky, hoping to continue their bullying. But most people had grown wise to the game. Most - except one in Dallas, Texas. This new idiot despised cheerleaders and Republicans alike, and dreamed of building a list with the same clout as Harper’s.

The end.

Bows

I hope that covers everything :)

I'll try to make this one simple, so that I don't have to respond too often on my Sunday :)

Ahem Once upon a time, one day, the village idiot bought an iPhone. They quickly learned that every village had its own idiot, and many of them disliked the same obscure thing - a thing that was once niche, but now spreading everywhere, watered down as it grew popular. So the idiot began messaging the others.

The idiot had a thought: What if everyone who enjoyed this once‑obscure thing could be tracked, mocked, and silenced? What if an automated system could ban them, one by one, across villages? And what if even those loosely connected to the “thing” were added to the list, treated as subhuman, and denied a voice?

The idiot’s name was Randi Harper. She began compiling names into a spreadsheet. Errors crept in, but the rules were simple: By Any Means Necessary and No Bad Targets. Friendly fire was not a mistake - it was proof the list mattered. And the list grew.

Soon the list wasn’t just about the original “thing”. It spread to sports, cinema, anime, children’s fiction. It expanded into race, gender, and class. The ball of intersectional outrage grew massive, rolling over people far removed from the original dispute. The village idiots cheered, convinced they were righteous.

Then the truth emerged: only journalists and opportunists were really promoting the list. Behind the noise lay darker stories - abuse, violence, corruption. The village idiots had been ostracised for a reason. Now, united by their iPhones, they became something worse.

Their platform was bought out. They fled to another one, called BlueSky, hoping to continue their bullying. But most people had grown wise to the game. Most - except one in Dallas, Texas. This new idiot despised cheerleaders and Republicans alike, and dreamed of building a list with the same clout as Harper’s.

The end.

Bows

I hope that covers everything :)

I'll try to make this one simple, so that I don't have to respond too often on my Sunday :)

Ahem Once upon a time...long before you and I were ever here, there was a village idiot who didn't like something particularly obscure getting popular. People would laugh at the village idiot and slowly, but surely, they would start to buy into this obscure thing little by little, watering it down so to speak.

Then, one day, the village idiot got an iPhone and found out that every village had an idiot and that some of them also did not like this obscure thing, now not so obscure, getting popular and watered down as it gets picked up by more and more people, and this village idiot started messaging the other village idiots.

This village idiot had an idea. What if everyone who likes this obscure, well, now fairly popular, thing could somehow be tracked and berated but kept from being able to answer for themselves. What if, an automated system could be put in place which made everyone on a particular spreadsheet be banned by all the other village idiots and those who are getting into this popular 'thing'?

What if, even those just mildly associated with those who enjoy the thing and not wanting it watered down any further were also put onto the list and popular people talked about them as if they were subhuman monsters who shouldn't be listened to?

And so this village idiot, who was called Randi Harper, got to work and compiled a list of everyone she could possibly find that liked this obscure thing, now widely popular - the biggest entertainment industry in the world actually, and put them on her spreadsheet and had the other village idiots all lament about how people who weren't on the list would be, if they didn't sign up to it and tell others to do the same.

The list got bigger and bigger, some errors were made but the "By Any Means Necessary" and "No Bad Targets" rules established earlier meant that they were friendly fire examples which only further proved why the list was so important.

The list shifted its gaze for being included onto other aspects that people liked. Sports, cinema, anime, children's fiction...the list was ever expansive. Those promoting the list, particular those with some perceived influence on this connected platform, started veering into people who had issues with their gender, their race, their class. All of a sudden this intersectional ball of people supporting village idiots was massive and rolled over so many people not connected to the original obscure, now in every home and hand, thing that the original village idiot didn't like.

Then it came out that only journalists and sexual deviants were actually promoting the list. People had been murdered, children abused and lots of other things. Turns out the village idiots were ostracised from civil society for a reason. Them getting together was an abhorrence that wouldn't have happened without them all having iPhones.

Their platform was bought over and they all moved onto another one, called BlueSky, were they tried to keep up their bullying behaviour but everyone was wise once again to the village idiots. Everyone that is, except someone in Dallas, Texas. They really didn't like both the cheerleaders for their football team or the Republican party of the United States and sought to somehow merge them into the beginnings of a list that could have a similar clout to the one that Randi Harper had created years before.

The end.

Bows

I hope that covers everything :)