Where I’m from, Christmas starts the day after Halloween 👻🎅🏾

Not everyone is a fan of this. There are people online who think it goes against some arbitrary rule they’ve made up in their head about when you’re “allowed” to put up your Christmas tree. Like Thanksgiving decorations carry some unique aesthetic that can’t be combined with Christmas-time 🎄+ 🦃 = 🙅

These people also get upset with their neighbors for putting up spooky decorations in September.

OH NO 😱

Don’t put up the 20-foot skeleton man from Home Depot on September 28! That’s too early! You’re going to break the laws of…the laws of… the laws of…

That’s where it ends. They don’t have any logical justification. They just don’t like the way it looks.

Like I already said, this group of people would probably tell you to wait until after Thanksgiving to put up your Christmas tree because god forbid someone else puts up cute decorations that make them happy before others have had a chance to cut their dry-ass turkey (yes, the same people who argue against early decorations also suck at seasoning their food, I won’t be elaborating any further).

Then there’s a third group of people who also think getting your Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving is too soon. The only difference is they don’t care enough to argue with strangers online about it.

I think it’s time to finally settle the debate on when it’s appropriate to put up your Christmas decorations, and my argument is:

WHO GIVES A FUCK?

Seriously, I’m not going to argue with anyone about this, and I’m not going to waste my time reading someone else’s arguments about it. If some stranger on the internet ranting about when you can put up your Christmas lights shows up on my feed because the algorithm thought I’d be interested in that post, they’re getting blocked 🛑

It’s quick, painless, and saves me the hassle of reading something I don’t care about.

If you have yet to discover the joy of freely blocking people online, I hope this email gives you the strength to make it happen 🙏

In the summer of 2020, I wrote UNFOLLOW 4 UNFOLLOW. The post encouraged people to unfollow others they no longer wanted to see online.

It’s nothing malicious. It’s an acknowledgment that my time and energy are sacred, and it’s already hard enough to find good content in the garbage dump that is today’s internet. I don’t want to waste an ounce of brainpower or a precious second of life consuming something I don’t care about.

I’m happy you asked.

The post from 2020 was inspired by all the follows we made over the years and then forgot about. Like that person you followed because you had one drunk convo back in college and never talked again, or the account your friends made for their dog (I’m done following dog accounts; I’ve reached my limit; no more dog accounts ever!).

Unfollowing is the realization and acceptance that you’d rather be consuming some other content than someone’s daily sunset pictures (no offense to sunset pictures; mine are awesome, yours are not as good).

My impulse to block random people on the internet was born from all the interactions I’ve had on the internet. Spend enough time on Twitter (or anywhere on the internet, for that matter), and you’ll come across sexism, racism, anti-semitism, xenophobia, hate, bigotry, and some of the most incomprehensible ignorance the world has ever seen.

If you think it’s bad, it’s actually worse than you could ever imagine.

You’d think with so much bad shit happening, the people in charge of these platforms would try a little harder to moderate the scum of the Earth. But they seem to be on the side of all these terrible people.

A stronger form of mute?

Excuse me?

I thought we had Freedom™️ here?

Why do the people with the worst takes always complain that nobody wants to listen to them? I wonder why that would be….🍵🐸

I’m free to block whoever I want.

There is no law that says that I, a private citizen, am obligated to allow you to see or interact with my content or anything in my life. If I don’t want you to see it or even know it exists, that’s my prerogative.

It’s a beautiful thing to have, and I think more people should take advantage of it because life is too short to have to scroll through dozens of paid blue checks with shitty opinions until you get to the good replies.

I could probably write 1000 more words on why I’m so pro-blocking. Instead, let me give you a few examples of people I blocked for a variety of reasons so you can see what I’m talking about.

We’ll start slow and then ramp it up 📈

This artist who said MOTOMAMI was better than any Bad Bunny album 🤨

This lady who’s only ever seen one movie and thinks every other movie is an alternate version of the one she saw 👩‍👧‍👧

This lady who thinks her country is perfect, and there’s nothing we can do better to improve anyone’s life, and everyone should just accept things as they are or gtfo 🦅

This guy who’s a Software Engineer at Twitter and agrees with Elon that muting is better than blocking 😒

This dude who thinks body odor isn’t real. My condolences to anyone who has to stand near him 😷

This guy who has no respect for sex workers but probably spends a lot of his free time gooning 💩

This lady who loves to go to the movies and watch TikToks in the middle of the movie 📲

Speaking of movies, this dude who thinks Christopher Nolan doesn’t make good movies 😵

This wealth mindset guy who thinks everyone would be able to afford a house if they only spent less time waiting in line to pump gas 🚗

This guy who thinks it’s so easy to get rich from writing a newsletter 😑

This guy because of his cover photo and other ignorant shit he said 🤦‍♂️ (For the record, the cover photo is objectively hilarious and goes hard af. Also, don’t be fooled by the profile pic, he’s some Black dude in his 20s.)

This girl who has never heard the song Here We Go Yo by Hector ‘El Father’ featuring Jay-Z 💎

I could go on all day, but a fellow writer suggested I should only do 5-8 examples (that’s when I already had 10 chosen), so here’s one final one that actually left me 🤯

This incel who thinks TEMS is mid 😤

I hope this email has given you the strength to go out and block anyone who brings some energy into your internet experience you have no time for.

Feel free to respond to this email and let me know what’s the pettiest reason you ever used to justify blocking someone 😈

PS

Here’s one more just because I had like 40 screenshot examples to pick from, and I wanted to put all of them, but I know you ain’t got time for that 😇

This guy who thinks women who don’t walk away from situations where they feel nervous are responsible for whatever happens 🤮

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