Did anyone ever think that this is what we’d be seeing, 21 months after hysteria erupted like the Yellowstone caldera? Amid the first stirrings of hysteria, it was impossible to predict exactly what absurdities we would tolerate, but even this seems beyond the pale. Instances like this appear only to uncover a psychological and moral rot that was already there, festering below the surface long before we heard about COVID-19. The sheer degeneracy of the adults who orchestrate petty cruelties like this, combined with the inability of others to put a stop to it, either through apathy, cowardice, or the desire to not stand out, points to something dark in store for us in the near future. There are good people in this world, but too few are speaking up, too many are allowing the wolves to get too close. We have our small victories against this encroaching cultural abyss, but at the moment they are amounting to little more than pinholes of light amid a vast darkness. Something has changed irreversibly, a dam has broken that cannot be repaired.

Author: S. Smith