“Here’s the thing,” he said, “no matter how this turns out, even if the box is full of lifesaving medicine for orphans, I’m always going to be the incel terrorist. I can live to be a hundred years old, and that’s all I’ll be. The internet doesn’t forget.”
“Fuck the internet, then.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“Is it?”
“All of my friends are online. It’s where I work, it’s where I live. If everyone abandons me…” He shrugged, unable to even make himself visualize it.
“I’m not going to say that those friendships aren’t real,” said Ether. “I’m not an asshole. But any friend who abandons you over a baseless internet rumor wasn’t your real friend. Whether you knew them in person or on a screen.”
“You say so much that sounds like it came off some housewife’s inspirational Facebook meme.”
“That’s another game the cynics play. ‘Because this objectively true thing has been said too many times by unoriginal thinkers, we have to reject it and make ourselves miserable just to spite them.’”