You Must Chill

This one’s for my liberal homies on Facebook:

Enough with the terrifying posts that a.) aren’t fact checked and b.) don’t offer any constructive actions.

There was a post circulating after the Big Beautiful Butthead Bill passed in Congress. I’m sure you saw it. (See article below if you didn’t).  The post wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t entirely correct either. Fact check here.

When you see something like this post and your heart starts racing and your imagination is spinning out of control and the only thing you can think to do is repost…STOP.

You’re playing right into the Dumpster Fire in Chief’s strategy of overwhelming all of us out of the ability to think and act clearly. It’s brain science (the kind of thing we over-educated liberal elites love!). If you aren’t up on the science of your own brain and emotional regulation, now is the time to learn, because the DFIC has your number. When your amygdala is activated by these info bytes (regardless of who generated them), your executive function gets downgraded and you officially go into fight or flight mode. In other words, you get more stupid and reactive (remind you of anyone?). 

I’m not saying ignore it or go to sleep. The threat is real, the danger is here. The internet and even social media can be a source of information, but use it wisely. There isn’t actually any use in physically running or fighting right now (unless it’s part of your exercise routine), which is what your brain is prepping you for when you read a scary-ass post, get overwhelmed, and start cranking out the cortisol. It might come to running and fighting, but we’re not there yet. Right now, we need our wits about us. 

One of the factors that has allowed DFIC to get as far as he has is his ability to harness the power of social media to hijack the emotion centers of the brain. When you repost without checking or enriching, you’re doing his work for him.

Maybe this will help: In The Prisoner of Azkaban, Professor Lupin teaches everyone how to disarm a boggart with the Riddikulus spell. When the boggart bursts out of the armoire and assumes the shape of whatever scares you the most, you will—unless you keep your wits about you—believe the boggart and be reduced to helpless, quivering jelly. If you’ve got any Gryffindor in you at all, remember that the choice is yours. You get to determine how you respond to this situation. RESPOND, not react. Use the spell and watch DFIC bounce back and forth on his jack on the box spring, or shrink down to puppet size with a tiny, squeaky voice and short arms flapping impotently and inanely.

Again, I’m not saying do nothing. I’m saying quit playing along. Be Lloyd, Be Harry, Be cool. You are better than this, smarter than this, stronger than this. If you need to go berserker at some point, so be it. But save that fight for the right moment. Don’t blow your cortisol on doom scrolling and reposting. If you need to be on social media, check your sources, cite them, and include viable actions for readers. 

C’mon, y’all. We’re the smart ones in this fight. Let’s actually be intelligent about this.