the art of arguing with strangers about agreed-upon stuff

the messy art of debating strangers on twitter about stuff we all agree on

so i woke up today and decided to scroll through twitter (as one does when they want to feel something) and holy heck, the amount of debate over stuff everyone AGREES on is wild. like, there’s a debate happening about whether or not the sun is hot while people are still typing in ALL CAPS about the benefits of breathing. why do we do this?? it’s like we’re all 12 years old and just super bored with no snacks in sight.

most baffling part: we KNOW we agree; the debate is literally pointless. yet here we are, arguing about which way to slice bread when the real answer is to just sit down for once. it’s mental how we’ve perfected this habit of arguing for the sake of arguing. like twitter turned into one giant playground where the only rule is ‘be as dumb as possible’ and i can’t tell if it’s genius or hellscape.

case studies:

• i saw someone get into a heated argument about whether cereal should be eaten with milk or dry (it’s both, but also neither, because it’s cereal). this person then doubled down for TWENTY TWEETS straight, refusing to concede that they’d ever eaten cereal correctly.
• or the time i was in a debate about whether cats or dogs were better—this one’s COMMON—except it escalated into people quoting ancient roman emperors’ opinions on pets. like, mate, i don’t care about augustus’ cat conventions! (but i kinda do).
• also once got roped into fighting someone about whether pineapple belonged on pizza. ended up arguing with this guy for three hours while my brain turned to pudding. the entire twitter conversation is just me losing brain cells at 2 am, and i will never recover.

so, tips for (not) losing your mind on twitter:
step one: remember that nobody’s changing anyone’s mind. you’re arguing with a brick wall that’s also on fire and melting. after five minutes, you’ve technically wasted your energy, even if you’re winning (which you’re not).
step two: set a timer. when it hits 10 minutes, close the tab. this prevents you from going full-psycho and typing things you’ll regret at 3 am when you wake up.
step three: if you’re feeling wild, just mute the convo and go watch cat videos instead. proper zen move.

honestly, debating on twitter is this weird mix of boredom, ego, and maybe a tiny bit of entertainment — but mostly boredom. like, why are we giving this much brainpower to strangers about cereal conventions at 2 in the morning?

anyway, that’s my manifesto on how to lose (or preserve) your mind on social media. take it or leave it; i’m gonna do both anyway.