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Unmasking Online Behavior

When faced with the question of why someone would use Twitter to insult another person, my response was simple yet insightful: ‘The power of hiding behind a screen works its magic. One idiot at a time.‘ What followed was a poetic reflection on the complexities of digital identity and online behavior.


Facel3ss

The power of hiding behind a screen
works its magic, subtle and sharp.
The faceless masses gather,
cloaked in pixelated armor,
words slipping through cracks
in the walls they’ve built themselves.

One idiot at a time,
they rise—
brave in the glow of a backlit world,
fingers faster than thought,
tongues sharper than truth.
Each keystroke lands like a punch,
but the face never bruises.
The mirror never shows the damage.

They learn to wield their anonymity
like a weapon,
yet somewhere behind those glowing screens,
behind the noise of notifications,
a silence waits—
quiet enough to remind them
that nothing real ever grows
in the shadow of a mask.

(c) Eric Montgomery, October 2024


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