Australian to America: You Need to Be Muted

Unhappy with the current state of discourse on social media? You're probably not as fed up as Australian Patrick Marlborough, who unloads on American tweeters (and America in general) in a profane and epic rant at Gawker. He recounts how the story of a guy who abruptly quit his job and severed ties with co-workers went viral in Australia, with people celebrating and laughing about the feat. But then Americans got wind of the story and hijacked it, demanding that posts about it be taken down because the job-quitter surely is in some sort of mental health crisis. Many blamed the Australian health care system or societal ills. And on and on. The Aussie who originally posted the tale ("fungbunger") gleefully took on all American comers with disdain and mockery—until Twitter suspended his account.

"The martyrdom of fungbunger has made it crystal clear in my mind: we need a way to mute America," declares Marlborough. "Why? Because America has no chill. America is exhausting. America is incapable of letting something be simply funny instead of a dread portent of their apocalyptic present. America is ruining the internet." Of course, he adds, it's also true that "America is the internet." This leads to a bigger-picture beef, in which he complains that "the greatest trick America’s ever pulled on the subjects of its various vassal states is making us feel like a participant in its grand experiment." As a result, Marlborough knows names such as Ted Cruz and Pete Buttigieg, when he has no business doing so. Read the full piece, in which he apologizes for Australian mogul Rupert Murdoch's role in all this.)