I want to talk about circle-jerking. Before you get the wrong idea, I don’t mean how you spend your Tuesdays. What I’m referring to is the echo chamber of self congratulatory fellating that goes on between people who share the same opinions that think they’re any smarter for having someone else agree with them. And for every pat-yourself-on-the-back dialogue out there is an equally perverse and annoying anti-circle-jerk to go along with it.

Here’s an example of a current topic; the whole Black Lives Matter thing. These happy-go-lucky peacemongers sit around passing the peace pipe getting caught in an endless loop of regurgitating the same statistics and anecdotes that we’ve all heard and are bored to death with. I’d sooner take suicide by cop than sit in on one of these mindless talks again, and with my next semester at a liberal arts school starting up again the temptation grows ever so tantalizing.

Then there’s the aforementioned anti-circle-jerk; these Blue Live Matter folk. They make borderline racist rants about how the ‘pansie liberals’ don’t recognize that ALL LIVES MATTER and that it’s not a race issue. Talking about how Beyonce supporting the movement is bad for America. Give us all a break. Both sides. You can see the longing to drop that hard R hanging off their teeth like the dip packed between their gums.

I don’t have a chicken in this fight and I don’t care to. I hate all of you. I loathe any person who dives in headfirst to a bandwagon for the sake of getting to hear themselves speak. Is it true I’m a cynic? Obviously. Have I not slept more than six hours in the past four days? Guilty as charged. But if I know one thing is true with honest clarity it’s that this cycle of berating and taunting each other until someone either shoots up a mall or creates another safe space bubble where my Starbucks used to be isn’t helping anyone.

This doesn’t only pertain to big stuff either. I bet you could name any topic and I’d be willing to bet there are levels on plateaus on tiers of the same half-assed photocopied arguments going back and forth with no end in sight. The problem isn’t the subjects themselves, it’s you. It’s this whole culture which has convinced everyone that not only does their voice matter, but that because they have an opinion everyone else has to hear it.

I can’t even pretend like I don’t understand where this false sense of entitlement came from. Open one of your old year books and flip to your graduating class. Look up every loser online and to no avail you’ll find that they’re all somehow rappers, producers, entrepreneurs, or suit-wearing, 0-on-the-sides-8-inches-on-top, self promoting, vapid, empty hacks.

The anti-social-media circle-jerk is overplayed enough as it is but if there’s even a nugget of honesty in it it’s that it’s given us all a platform to be the celebrities we never had the luck, drive, or talent to become. Whether we’re failures or just plain mediocre, society has given us an out so that we can avoid the stinging heart burn that not being recognized gives us.

I believe with all sincerity that losing the sense of feeling down about being a total loser is the poison in our water supply. You aren’t getting good grades in school and can’t find a good job? Yeah, you’re a joke. Buck up and put in the work instead of posting selfies on snapchat of you alone with a bottle of wine telling the world how fat and lonely you are. For as much as you care about yourself on the spectrum of giving a shit, the world feels the inverse. All you’re doing is chronicling the journey of a depressing egocentric for the world to see as they scroll through their timelines. All you’re doing is giving people with equally sad lives something to look at and say ‘well at least I’m not that bad.’

We need to start calling spades spades again. If we coddle losers to the point of delusion then all we’re creating is a sleet of which the composition consists of self-proclaimed snowflakes. The truth about mid January slush is that it’s mostly dog shit by the time the sun gets to melting it away. It doesn’t fall from the sky the color of Trenton. And I say this as a loser myself so don’t cry to me about why I shouldn’t say this or I shouldn’t talk about that. But also don’t expect me to empathize with you either. The sooner we admit to ourselves that we’re failures, the sooner we can make that title temporary.