Have brain eating, society crushing, putrefying,
corrupted, stalking creatures missed your
attention? If you are looking out your window, yes. But they are all around you on the Internet - and commonly called
trolls. Not literally brain eating, but sucking the intelligence out of
anything they can and drawing their strength from the meat viciously torn from
innocent victims. Trolls are a species, a different species. Zombies are
ruined, rotting humans who procreate by contaminating others. Zombies are much
more like what we think of when we think of Internet trolls.
Zombie purists probably do not like this line of thinking.
They would rather we grapple with a weaponized version of an ancient
middle/northern European demon than risk exploring the real meaning behind the
current popularity of zombies.
Certain entertainment subjects have been popular in the
past because they are a blurry reflection of what is going on around us at that
time. Intended to or not, these images resonate with us in some way. The
Marx Brothers deflating fat cats, expressing the hidden desires of depression
weary Americans; The Invasion of the Body Snatchers echoing America’s
unease with McCarthyism’s “enemies among us”; the racism reflected in The
Day the Earth Stood Still and now the obsession with zombies in this,
the heyday of hate on the Internet. It is not a coincidence.
Hate on the Internet is one of the
most destructive forces in our society today (1st Amendment? that’s for a later
blog post) and it is ugly, vile, contagious, indiscriminant and corrosive.
Zombies are vile, thoughtless, degenerate, dehumanized, creatures
preying on the minds (brains) and hearts (flesh) of innocent vulnerable people
who are then forced to hide in order to survive. Sounds like internet hate,
sounds like trolls.
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