The story of a Pokemon, forwarded inspirational fluff, and Stalin's chicken
I used to have a Facebook page called "Psyduck In The Rain."
On this page, I post parodies of inspirational stories with a cynical or misanthropic twist. And twisted it is, sometimes. Often.
First, a little history. Way, way, way back in the early 2000s, when people surfed the internet on Netscape Navigators and 56k modems, I and my college friends had an email group where anything goes, so long as its wholesome. So you get a daily dose of geekery, collections of jokes, funny news items (probably where the Florida Man memes evolved from), and of course, the forwarded inspirational stories. A friend would forward stories from a newsletter called "Coffee In The Rain." I'm not sure how popular it was, but I feel like it was trying to be some sort of online "Chicken Soup for The Soul."
Now, no offense to people who love these stories, but it rarely had the intended effect on me. The overly saccharine plots, the evangelical tones, yeah, not a fan. And since I still had (and probably still have) the mentality of a mischievous 12-year-old despite being a college senior, I started spoofing them. I called my entries "Psyduck In The Rain," named after a clumsy Pokemon whose main character trait is a persistent migraine. I had frequent migraines back then.
So, Psyduck In The Rain. I literally copy-pasted inspirational stories and changed the ending into something weird and surreal. You know the story of the two brothers and the carpenter who, instead of building a wall between their properties, built a bridge instead? Now, when the brothers met in the middle of the bridge, the carpenter shouted "MORTAL KOMBAT!" The story of the churchgoers ignoring a homeless man in front of the church, and the homeless guy revealing himself to be the pastor much to the shame of the flock? Now, the pastor stretched and said "Maaaaaannnnnn that was a wild party last night!" The story of the funeral of the old woman who always brought a fork for dessert? Now, it ended in a zombie apocalypse and the government nuked the town. Fun stories, yeah?
So when Facebook became a thing, I thought it was best to revive Psyduck In The Rain. I never intended it to go viral. Well it never did. It's just supposed to be a sort of an in-joke page for my twisted friends. One entry went viral, though. A pic of a bar of beef fat with a message saying something like it's good for those with miserable lives because it can clog your arteries and shorten your years. Friends of friends of friends got amused, shared it, then some people with no sense of humor reported it and it got removed. Anyways, the same subset of friends from our old email group liked and shared the stuff I put up. I googled more inspirational stories and twisted them all. For years, we had our fun.
Until Stalin's chicken.
It was a short anecdotal story of Stalin demonstrating how to abuse and manipulate people by abusing and manipulating a chicken in front of his generals. It made a good point about authoritarianism and its fans.
And then I added a new ending. Stalin picked up the abused chicken and swallowed it whole- stuffing the whole bird into his mouth, straining and grunting, his bushy moustache wriggling wildly as the bird got pushed down his throat. Then Stalin nodded to his shocked generals and whistled cheerily as he left the room. A new lesson ended the story: only the best dictators can swallow live chickens whole.
The following day, I got flagged and warned because of Stalin's chicken.
I contested it, it got resolved. After a few minutes, same thing. Flagged and warned because of Stalin's chicken, contested it, resolved. Then the same crap. Flagged, contested, resolved, flagged, contested, resolved. By early afternoon, I got permanently banned for "supporting dangerous individuals." I tried appealing, but nah, no dice.
I opened a new FB account, added my friends, and everyone got worried and concerned because everything happened during the time when people critical of the government discovered doppelganger FB accounts. Even my mom berated me and imagine how ridiculous it was for me to explain to her that I got banned because of Stalin's chicken. Imagine how ridiculous it was to explain the same thing over and over again to each and every concerned friend I added.
Today, I haven't revived Psyduck In The Rain. And with all the fake news troll groups that still pervade Facebook with zero repercussions, the whole experience really sucked more. Yeah. Send Psyduck to the gulag and allow anti-vaxx and flat-earthers to roam free? It stings. FB did remove fake accounts and groups a few months back, so that somehow dulls the pain a bit. But there are still tons of stupid people posting more offensive crap that get away with it. I even saw the same Stalin story (minus my "better" ending) a couple of times and the posters weren't even suspended.
WTF.
So in the end, what did I learn?
The best dictators don't swallow live chickens whole.
They swallow Psyducks.