Subtitle: From “Oops” to “It Wasn’t Me” in 0.2 Seconds
So what happens when you tell a manipulative little gremlin—sorry, a person—that their actions caused harm?
They don’t apologize. That’s old-school. That’s vintage. That’s… accountability. Ew.
No, no, no. We go full toddler-on-the-floor mode.
“It wasn’t me.”
“I didn’t know.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Maybe YOU misunderstood.”
“Everyone’s being dramatic.”
“Look! Someone else did something worse!”
Welcome to The Empathy Hacker’s Denial Spiral™, now available as a mobile game where the objective is to dodge every trace of responsibility by wildly flailing and pointing at literally anyone else.
Enter The Trump Method: Deny, then accuse. Repeat until your conscience self-deletes.
But here’s the wrinkle: this doesn’t just happen in isolation. No, the real professionals have influencers.
Ah yes, the well-timed empathy gremlins with just the right TikTok quote, just the right sympathetic video. They slide into the scene like NPCs programmed for damage control.
And it’d be believable—if the person accused didn’t literally control their entrance with a mouse click.
Like, buddy… you’re not even a good stage manager.
The illusion of innocence kinda falls apart when your emotional support influencers appear like clockwork giving me the time of the long awaited communication which gets postponed to another date because of another sickness or trouble.
I wait the first time, then out of politeness I wait again, then I voluntarily wait a third time but still nothing happens.
Then it turns out that they are waiting for me to do something so they communicate. As if i was the one in need and they are declaring their conditions to help me.
So I let them politely know that I’m fed up with this, If you want my help, cool. If not, kindly exit my personal atmosphere. And that, dear reader, is when the final boss reveals itself.
They don’t reply directly, no. That would be mature. Instead, they send their little puppet parade—subtle disapproval looks, vague comments, the kind of social signals you’d expect from Victorian ghosts with unresolved issues.
What they don’t know? I feast on their disapproval.
I season my inner peace with their passive-aggressive breadcrumbs. Every breath I take during their disapproval is a blessing.
And sure, I could go into detail about the mess. I could list the names, the patterns, the pain trails you left behind like someone emotionally leaking all over a department store floor.
But I won’t. Not because I can’t—but because I refuse to add more hurt to your grotesque social experiment.
Enough people have suffered in your dumb little game.
And yet… you’re still playing.
Still justifying.
Still looking for someone else to blame.
So here’s a spicy little question to snack on between rounds of public denial and private micromanagement:
Do you actually care about the people you hurt by proxy including the ones you support?
Or are you just fine with it—so long as you can say, “Well, that wasn’t me… someone else did that.”
Because from here, it looks like the only thing you’re really good at is confusing manipulation with strategy and hoping no one notices the stench.
Spoiler: we noticed.
Maybe in part 3 I will start a campaign under the hash tag #stopthegame similar to #metoo campaign where every victim can share their suffering.
