I Used to Like You Until...: (How Binary Thinking Divides Us)

by Kat Timpf

As I mentioned in the last chapter, these types of interactions are less conversations than they are a perpetual volleying of “I know I am, but what are you.” It can go something like this: It is so messed up how Joe Biden said he was not involved in his son Hunter’s business dealings, and now it is coming out that Hunter called him twenty times during business meetings! Oh yeah? Well, Trump was convicted of thirty-four felony counts and is facing even more! Well, why hasn’t Joe Biden been charged, especially since it also came out that Biden sent thousands of emails using fake names, sometimes to discuss Hunter’s business dealings! Well, Trump used fake names too! Well, that was just to brag about himself to reporters! Biden was using his position of power to make money for his son! Oh yeah? Well, Trump used his position of power to try to overthrow the election! Jan. 6 almost dismantled our democracy! Oh yeah? If you hate riots so much, why aren’t you upset about the riots in the summer of 2020 that cost billions in damages! You would smear all black people as rioters, you racist! You hate the police! If someone tries to kill you, I’d better not see you calling the cops! And so on and so forth. Or rather, not forth. It doesn’t go forth; it doesn’t go anywhere. It’s a pathetic replacement for actual discourse, and it’s happening constantly between people on each side. People are not examining or even listening to what the other person is saying; they’re too busy thinking ...

Yes, I said “simping.” You guys know about simps, at least in the usual sense of the word. There are internet trolls, and then there are their opposites, which are the simps. Instead of commenting mean things on someone’s post, simps comment nonstop thirsty things. The ones who are like, “Kat, you are the most beautiful and smart woman ever. If I were just forty years younger…” (Like, then… what? Then what would you do, Gerry? Does your wife know you’re on here?)

Sometimes, the trolls and the simps argue with each other in the comments. If a troll says something like, “How is she gonna have all that forehead and still be dumb AF,” a simp will rush to defend my honor and reply with something like, “She is so smart and beautiful, why are you coming on Kat’s page and leaving hate?” and then the troll will hit the simp for being a simp, saying: “Hope she sees this, bro.” To anyone who has ever defended me in my comments, I really do appreciate it. You definitely have better things to do, just like I have better things to do than read them, but I appreciate it nonetheless. I don’t mean to smear you guys as simps, because not all of you are simps. Some of you are just fans and not weird about it at all. (Of course, some of you are very weird. For example, the guy who refers to himself as “Captain Save a Hoe,” who brought a red, fuzzy BDSM dog leash and collar to my meet and greet in Cincinnati, and then, weeks later, traveled all the way to my Houston show to meet and greet me again. Although I’ve met him twice, I still don’t really know what “Captain Save a Hoe” even means. Am I the hoe? Unclear.)

Politics does an excellent job of making people argue with people they actually know on behalf of people who have no idea they even exist. If that sounds pathetic to you? You’re right. Simping generally is.

We wouldn’t have to freak out about what might happen if This Guy or That Guy got elected if the people we elected didn’t have so much authority over us in the first place.

The best way to fight the system is to stop allowing it to make us so readily fight one another.

John Updike, was able to write such perfect little passages in his Rabbit novels that many of them have stuck with me my entire life. (Yeah, that bit about hate as a shelter isn’t the only one that’s stuck with me; there are so many: “We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one.” “How can you respect the world when you see it’s being run by a bunch of kids turned old?” “It comes to him: growth is betrayal. There is no other route. There is no arriving somewhere without leaving somewhere.” “Rabbit realized the world was not solid and benign, it was a shabby set of temporary arrangements rigged up for the time being, all for the sake of money.” “We are cruel enough without meaning to be.” “You can’t trust anybody not to fuck.” And then there’s the one that made me sob over and over again after my mom died: “What you lose as you age is witnesses, the ones that watched from early on and cared, like your own little grandstand.” Ouch.)

I don’t mind when horrible things happen to children. I don’t care if they’re groomed sexually, get addicted to vaping or drugs, die in school shootings, or kill themselves. It’s kind of whatever to me.

Our government may not be sure how to handle this pandemic but at least they can agree that I must not be allowed to obtain a mango-flavored Juul pod.

To me, however, the narrative just didn’t add up. For one thing, I’d been blowing fruity-flavored clouds every waking moment of every day for years, and yet I was still somehow very much alive—was I the, like, Keith Richards of vaping, with my very survival being a medical marvel? Or was the prevailing narrative missing the truth?

Whenever I hear language from the government that’s clearly meant to evoke fear, I ask myself two questions: Who or what does the government want me to be afraid of? And what do they gain if they succeed?

If you believe the other party is evil, then you get to be good simply because you’re against them. If all Democrats are groomers, then you’re not just a Republican; you’re a warrior protecting the innocence of children. If all Republicans are racist, then you’re not just a Democrat; you’re a modern-day Rosa Parks.

If opposing views become just opposing views, though—and not manifestations of immorality—then your views also become just views, and not manifestations of morality. If you accept that Republicans aren’t bad just by the very nature of being Republican, then you’ll also have to accept that being a Democrat doesn’t automatically make you a better person than everyone who isn’t.

But the truth is, the only thing most of the people viewing themselves in these inflated ways might have in common with Rosa Parks is that they’re sitting on their asses. The difference, of course, is that their ass-sitting is not a heroic act—no matter how much people seemed to act like it was during COVID. My God, was it ever easier to signify yourself as One of the Good Ones than it was during COVID? By doing nothing (as in, literally nothing, sitting at home on your couch all day and night), you were saving the world. People who wanted to open their businesses to feed their families were ba...