The Twitter trending widget yet again both facilitates and perfectly illustrates this dynamic. Matt Walsh’s factually wrong tweet is arguably the least helpful lens through which to consume or even discuss this news story. Click on it and you will learn nothing. You might laugh or get angry; You might join in on a dunk. But I promise you’ll actually learn nothing.

What will happen though, is that you will be forced — if just for a moment — to view Biles’ story through the flattened, shitty culture war lens. Maybe that will mean nothing to you, and you’ll go about your day unperturbed. More likely, it’ll stick around in your head as a tiny data point. Depending on your ideology, you might see it as further proof that MAGA-adjacent chuds are awful, racist jabronis looking to weaponize every story. Or you might see it as proof that the left is DEFENDING THEIR QUEEN or glorifying failure. In either instance, you just get the feeling that you’re surrounded by people who are deeply foolish and deranged — perhaps dangerously so. This realization might not send you into a depression, but it just generally feels bad.

Engaging with Twitter’s latest trending beef will not lead you to a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the issue. It will, however, help convince you that the broader cultural and political discourse is unredeemably toxic — a mindset that hails you, as user, to join in and fight, as there are clearly assholes everywhere that need defeating.