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Bryna's post reminded me that in the previous decade, while I was teaching at a small liberal arts college, students there started a local branch of a pernicious gossip site; I never checked it out (some of my colleagues did and reported being aghast--I didn't want to feed it), but as I understand, the content had much to do with shaming others for their (alleged) sexual behavior while simultaneously commenting on their attractiveness. The "Reply" culture post reminded me that in the same environment (a small, residential campus in a small community), occasionally faculty members would engage in Send-to-all debates that seemed more about one-upsmanship than policy. At home, I have been the victim of ransomware. The strategies used to hook me and then gain information were obvious yet sneaky at the same time. When I made it clear that I'd rather lose the documents and data stored on my aging laptop than pay to retrieve them and that I would not hesitate to report this instance, the scammers backed off. I had been using just one or two passwords for everything, though, and set up new, separate passwords for all my accounts, which I did not save on my new laptop. Now I have to do what I did for decades--walk across the room and look up a number/password in a book. Finally, as a college writing instructor, I am intensely bothered by poor writing made public. I believe that certain short forms tend to invite compositions that are simplistic to the point of being distortions, though I have read some polished and substantive tweets. But if one feels the need to use all caps, perhaps what one really needs to do instead is consult a thesaurus.
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