Ah, the benefits of being hated. My phone beeped at me this morning to let me know I’ve got an Important Text Message incoming. Here it is:
Huh? Who dis? I was curious about what I had done to annoy this stranger, so I looked him up on Facebook. He is a 37 year old who owns a construction company in Orlando, Florida, and he’s an anti-masker, anti-vaccine, COVID denying, BLM opponent who supported Trump, so that didn’t help — I think there’s zero common ground there.
Suggestion to all you anonymous critics: do try to be a little bit specific. I can’t possibly correct my repulsive behavior, or even feel a little bit chagrined, if you don’t declare what’s bothering you, beyond my simple existence. As it is, it just looks like you might have had a bad day, and instead of feeling hurt by the pettiness, I’m more like to feel sorry for you.
In case anyone is plotting to disrupt my sleep with a flood of late night hate texts, don’t bother. I’ve got them disabled until my wake-up time, so I hardly need an alarm — the phone lights up and makes a little chime and I can look over on the nightstand and see the pile of abusive messages. It’s an incentive to get up and face the day. Which is always unremittingly hostile in stupid, trivial ways.
This guy owns a construction company and he has time for this kind of childishness? Must be a pretty slipshod operation.
He mad, bro.
He’s clearly a volunteer to be a member of the unvaccinated reservoir that will keep Covid alive as a recurrent disease for decades. Maybe we can call it the “Trump flu.” Perhaps it will gradually weed out Mr. 45’s die-hard supporters (ironic: “die-hard”) while vaccinated people continue to rebuild society in a more socially responsible form.
Running a construction company in Florida is not exactly a recommendation right now. Does he do any work in Surfside?
That sucks. Let me bring some balance to the universe by doing something I’ve put off for some time and that’s to say thanks for writing your blog so consistently and consistently well for as long as you have. I’ve followed you since the ScienceBlogs days, back when I was a young and arrogant atheist ready to take on the religious hegemony. I also might have fallen by the wayside like many other young males as I was not predisposed to giving consideration to women, trans people or various disenfranchised groups. When the big split around Atheism+ happened I could have gone the other way, but because I enjoyed and had respect for your writing and viewpoint I eventually came around. So after all these years of reading Pharyngula I’m now just a middle-aged and slightly arrogant atheist with a better vocabulary. Thanks.
PZ: Well you got Florida fans too.
It’s amazing the amount of time and money people seem to have at their disposal to exercise and spread their stupidity. Says something about the business community, not sure what, but it’s not good.
The ‘shadow reality world’ promoting the lie that the presidential election was stolen
$ $ $ $
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/inside-the-shadow-reality-world-promoting-the-lie-that-the-presidential-election-was-stolen/
$ $ $ $
Must be a liberating experience for some to think they’ve been given the license and the duty to devote their lives to being complete and utter dumbfuck assholes without constraint.
I inferred that from his use of the phrase “Beta bitch”.
Here is one from Florida woman.
Her mother, who was unvaccinated, just died from the Covid-19 virus that went through an office building in Manatee county.
She still isn’t getting vaccinated because her mother, who died from Covid-19 virus, didn’t die from..the Covid-19 virus. You can’t argue with logic like this.
This is happening hundreds of times every day in the USA.
30% of the adult population still refuses to get vaccinated and 99% of the people who catch the virus and/or die are…unvaccinated.
Txting someone abuse is not alpha behavior. It’s around zeta If I recall my chart.
Abuse like this is evidence of a small……mind.
Sorry you have to deal with it.
Re: raven @ #8…
The situation that worries me is the one from Houston Medical where they fired a bunch of staff for refusing vaccination (I’m on the hospital chain side of that). The lead plaintiff is, apparently, still refusing to be vaccinated AND has gone to work for a company that provides in-home nursing assistance.
The news article I read that talked about that did not name the company she works for now, but it does mean that if you, a relative, or a friend need such care, it’d be a really good idea to get the supplying company’s policy on staff vaccination, in writing, ahead of time.
I’m dealing with a friend now who refuses to get vaccinated. She’s elderly and not in good health and won’t get the vaccine because of anecdotal crap she hears.
Well I’m going to piggy-back on @5, drivenb4u, and say YES!, what he said. Take this for what it’s worth but if I were somehow elected president of these United States I would require you as an advisor if not a cabinet-level appointee. And I would not take no for an answer. :-)
Was talking about the buzz of leaving positive comments for people and how trolls must be wired backwards? What possesses someone that age to feel the need to reach out with such weird bullshit?
Re: brightmoon @ #12….
Ask her if she needs any help with estate planning, so she can do it now, before it’s too late.
This looks like a child from Facebook. I love chuds from Facebook. Because I actually drop a few “Here’s why Trump sucks and you suck for supporting him” memes on his posts and watch the meltdown before he blocks me. But I’m evil like that. ;)
*chud
Thanks, autocorrect. At least you learned that I never mean “duck”…
He sounds about 12. Maybe you should forward his message to his mother.
@18: He’s probably yelling at his mom to bring him some pizza rolls because he’s being such a badass on Facebook.
XD
Florida man sends morning text message to well like spider biologist.
Living rent free in his head.
drivenb4you @ 5,mandrake @ 13
Seconded!
Hate mail gets more enjoyable the longer the message is. The late Ed Brayton forwarded many LOL examples with spelling, grammar and convoluted logic that cheered up the commenters no end.
@7 – Stroppy:
many thanks for that link, it was excellent reading, if a bit depressing.
The takeaway is, there’s now a huge ecosystem of this kind of rubbish being generated, and many are irretrievably sucked in. At the top, of course, are those who are making a mint out of it, and are therefore motivated to push things to the extreme. The marks obviously cannot even imagine they are being fleeced by those bastards.
All in all, not a good situation.
@3 I have Rheumatoid Arthritis ,due to start taking Methotrexate ,which fecks up your immune system .
The last thing i need is a bunch of braindead selfish twats keeping Covid 19 going .
While we in GB don’t have as many titheads as America ,there are at least 17 million of them here.
@23 #birgerjohansson:
So did PZ “I get mail” Myers.
I was wondering if anyone might be able to recommend a place to talk about trauma and working with it? I figured this post would work to ask since Florida Man and I may share some experiences and culture.
I’ve been trying to figure my trauma out and I keep running into issues working through the existing literature and how the concepts relate to the feelings. There’s a distinctions between the anticipatory feelings, and the feelings while trying to interact that I’ve having trouble identifying in the literature. And when I try to look up something as specific as social interaction discomfort that includes feelings of social interaction with animals, I get lots of stuff with animal therapy. I’ve had issues with feeling others as long as I can remember. The paranoid, military, authoritarian, bullying culture got in deep.
Either I’m stuck in exposure therapy territory (I am trying to make myself socialize) or I’m missing something, or I just need outside minds.